Polyamory Weekly

A listener wants to know if it's OK to consider nesting with a partner if she's not sure she'll be comfortable hearing them have sex with someone else.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• Thanks to L for taking the dog so we could record! And forgive Baloo saying hello a few times in the episode. J
• D asked for our poly pet peeves, so here they are:
  • Sex negativity in the poly community. Nothing wrong if it IS all about the sex!
  • Folks who describe polyamory as "more evolved."
  • Poly gatekeepers.

8:30 Poly in the news

Three best poly 101 articles: https://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-3-best-poly-101-articles-to-share.html

10:00 Lusty Guy's Politics Corner

We all need to listen to BIPOC voices with respect to U.S. history. Watch the Netflix series Amend: The Fight for America, executive produced and hosted by Will Smith.

14:30 Feedback

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

15:00 Topic: is it OK to not want to hear my partner having sex with someone else?

E and her partner of two years are moving in together but concerned about hearing metamour sex and having private space. She asks if being completely okay with hearing one's partner getting down with a meta a pre-requisite for being good nesting partners? What are your thoughts on ways to progress to this point of compersion/okay-ness?

• Don't borrow trouble. You don't know how you'll react, and your actual reaction will probably be different, anyway.
• If it turns out that you don't, own your shit. It's your issue to address, not your partner's.
• What would monogamists do? When monogamists are concerned about living together, they do test runs--a weekend away, a week or two vacation—to experiment with domesticity.
• It's a two-way door decision: if you don't like it, you can go back to living apart.

26:50 Join the conversation

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

27:15 Feedback

Mica encourages us and you to continue the hard work of being allies to BIPOC.

30:00 Happy poly moment

Gigi writes in with a happy poly moment about community. Even though her local meetup hadn't met since February, she wanted to build community by giving back and adopted a family for the holidays. The group jumped at the chance, got every item on the family's list, including four bikes, and more! A great demonstration of building community by giving back.

32:15 Thank you!

Welcome Ivo to the PW Playmates!

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

Ashley Robertson, child care provider and sex-positive educator, makes her podcast debut to answer questions about age-appropriate sex education.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• Same ole' same ole' pandemic, just waiting for the vaccine

2:25 Poly in the news

• Three Dads and a Baby
• Caroline Rose Guiliani is a poly unicorn!
• Cambridge, Massachusetts passes new poly domestic partnership legislation

5:55 Feedback

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

6:40 Interview: Ashley Robertson on talking to kids about polyamory and sex

Ashley identifies as a feminine, bi-curious, ethically solo-polyamourous, sexual submissive. With over a decade of experience in the BDSM community, she isn't shy of perverse topics. She is a liberated, ethical slut who wishes to share with others the freedom of sexuality without shame.

Ashley is an expert question-asker. With three teaching degrees, she's an educator who is fed up with the idea that learning comes from a teacher. Instead, she crafts workshops and activities that invite introspection and curiosity while accommodating for all learners. She's at her happiest when working with youth; demonstrating consent, guiding them towards comfort surrounding condoms, and providing honest answers to questions about sexuality. She's trained to facilitate the Our Whole Lives curriculum and adapts the workshops to fit diverse audiences. Her workshops have reached local audiences for parent education events and audiences far and wide via virtual workshops hosted by educational, outreach organizations. Ashley's non-coercive, comprehensive approach to sex ed is what we all wished we had growing up. You can find her group on Facebook, Let's Talk About Sex Ed with Ms. Ashley.

• How do you approach sexual topics with kids?
• Our Whole Lives

28:10 Join the conversation

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

28:44 Happy Poly Moment

Fun story about the wife offering protection and safety tips to the metamour!

30:20 Thank you!

Welcome Ivo to the PW Playmates!

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

Matt writes in to ask what to do after a partner asks to be platonic while she figures things out. Lusty Guy and Minx give advice.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• Let's talk about snow and the polar vortex. Seattle snow was fun for us and our puppy, but Minx was worried about her family in Texas.

4:30 Lusty Guy's Politics Corner

• We all learned about the pilgrims founding America to enjoy religious tolerance, but it's not true. They decamped England and went to Amsterdam and then Leiden, where they faced no religious persecution. They stayed there for 10 years and ran for office in order to try to impose their religious views on everyone else. They weren't fleeing religious persecution; they wanted to establish it. Smithsonian Magazine reference, the pilgrims' time in Holland
• A primary reason the US government forbade membership in a specific church to run for office was because no one could agree on which church that should be. Want to find out more? Watch Stephen Fry in America or read the book.

9:45 Feedback

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

10:15 How do you handle a relationship going platonic?

Matt had a preexisting relationship with A.J., and Emma fell into that relationship. Emma realizes she needs to spend time on herself and wants to shift the relationship to a platonic friendship.

• Minx suggests seeing this as unrequited love and treating the shift in the nature of the relationship as a breakup.
• Lusty Guy also suggests taking time apart to do that healing from the breakup. He's also concerned that Matt might have a white knight or "nice guy" syndrome and be wishing for a transactional nature to the relationship.
• Consider that waiting for her sounds a lot like wanting to change her, so do take the time to heal and put yourself first instead.

21:40 Join the conversation

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

22:15 Feedback

This week's feedback is an appreciation of Lusty Guy's politics corner.

23:15 Happy Poly Moment

R wrote in to share that she uses Poly Weekly to redirect her anxiety. She expected to be anxious when her partner asked to bring a date over to their place for the first time, and she was pleased when she discovered it didn't kick off her anxiety. She believes she can be healthy and poly!

25:15 Shout out

Shout out to Jenn and Catherine with love from Tammy on their three-year anniversary!

Thank you!

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

Dr. Eli Sheff joins today to share her new project, The Bonding Project, in which she seeks to help people understand how they bond.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• Minx was down for a week with horrible symptoms of menopause, but feeling better now. Hoping to get Heather Corinna, author of What Fresh Hell Is This: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You, soon!

3:45 Poly in the news

• Chris Smith and Ben Schenker's have proposed legislation to the Washington, DC, City Council to expand domestic partnership and anti-discrimination laws to include multi-partnered relationships. More info from Chris on how to participate.
• Amy Dickinson finally gives good poly advice! Ask Amy: Polyamory creates an extra family challenge. Alan's blog post.

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

6:15 Interview with Dr. Eli Sheff

Dr. Elisabeth "Eli" Sheff is a researcher, expert witness, coach, speaker, and educational consultant. With a PhD in Sociology (University of Colorado, Boulder, 2005) and certification as a Sexuality Educator from the AASECT (the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, 2012), Dr. Sheff specializes in gender and sexual minority families, consensual non-monogamy, and kink/BDSM. Sheff is the foremost academic expert on polyamorous families with children, and her 20+ year Polyamorous Family Study is the only longitudinal study of poly families with children to date.

Find her at https://elisabethsheff.com/, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Check out https://www.bondingproject.com/ and her blog on Psychology Today.

26:45 Eli Sheff's Ranty Pants

In this new segment, we provide space for guests to rant about anything they like, big or small. Today: why are anti-maskers so anti-abortion but also apparently anti-life?

29:30 Join the conversation

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

30:00 Thank you!

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

Dr. Liz Powell and Kevin Patterson share insights from their new online course, Unf*ck your polyamory

0:00 Introduction and host chat

If you're under 18, visit www.scarleteen.com

1:00 Poly in the news

BBC 2 has a new drama called Trigonometry centered around black poly folks

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

2:00 Interview with Kevin Patterson and Dr. Liz Powell: Unfuck your polyamory

Kevin Patterson has practiced consensual nonmonogamy since 2002. In 2015, he started Poly Role Models, an interview series and polyamory's most inclusive platform. This has led to the writing of the book, Love's Not Color Blind and along with co-writer Alana Phelan, the sci-fi novel series, For Hire.

Dr. Liz Powell is a licensed psychologist (CA 27871) and coach who specializes in helping you build your most fulfilling, authentic life. They teach, write, and consult on areas of sexual diversity and pleasure, non-traditional relationships, and sexual empowerment.

Unfuck your polyamory is a 6-week course covering polyamory 101, boundaries, couple privilege, jealousy and compersion, metamours, and power dynamics that will give you easy, guided practice to put your skills into practice right away.

Kevin is at PolyRoleModels.tumblr.com, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PolyRoleModels, Facebook at facebook.com/PolyRoleModels, Instagram at http://instagram.com/@PolyRoleModels. For Hire is on Facebook at facebook.com/ForHIreMag or you can order For Hire: Operator directly at tinyurl.com/ForHireMag1.

Dr. Liz is at www.sexpositivepsych.com or www.drllizpowell.com, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sexpospysch, Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sexositivepsych, Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/drlizpowell. Their book is at http://buidingopenrelationships.com and YouTube channel is at http://youtube.com/c/sexpositivepsych.

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

29:00 Happy poly moment

R shares a story of her anxiety NOT getting the better of her!

30:15 Thank you!

Welcome new Poly Weekly Playmates Theresa, Rebecca, and Jillian!

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

How to experience and nurture compersion in your relationships

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• The Book of the Kiss is a fantasy romance sourcebook designed to be system-agnostic. Poly Weekly listeners can get half off the cover price here.
• Love is Polytical was a conference in Berlin last weekend.

3:50 Lusty Guy's polyamory and politics corner

Both sides are not the same. If what you are looking for deep, systemic reform to systems, yeah, they are similar. But with 300,000 new cases of COVID in the U.S., the response would have been different with a Democrat in office. If you're a woman seeking an abortion, an economist, a climatologist, or a trans person, you can see the difference.

8:45 Contact us

If you have questions, comments, or feedback call 802-505-POLY or email [email protected] and attach an MP3 file with your questions. To book us or anything that involves a calendar, email [email protected].

9:00 Topic: How do I develop compersion?

If you don't feel compersion, how do you develop the capacity to experience it.

• Compersion is the non-sexual joy you feel in seeing joy in others. It's empathy, and you likely experience it all the time. If you've ever been happy for a friend at their wedding or joyful that your kid won their soccer game, you've felt compersion.
• Start noticing and naming the compersion you feel already. If insecurity or jealousy are blocking you from feeling it in your poly relationships, try some of our jealousy/insecurity exercises, such as Discuss, Distract, Do and And Then What.
• Consider compersion a muscle that you can exercise. Practice it mentally. For example, try experiencing feeling empathy/compersion when your metamour wins a video game.

16:12 Join the conversation

Join the community on Facebook at https://facebook.com/polyweekly or Twitter at @polyweekly or @cunningminx, Instagram at cunning.minx or now on TikTok as @cunningminx.

16:30 Feedback

• A listener in Vancouver, Canada calls in to support Lusty Guy's politics corner
• David Wheeler provides an audio review of the Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory

19:15 Happy poly moment

• S shares a story of her metamour saving their life
• R finds strength and courage to pursue polyamory

23:45 Thank you to our subscribers and contributors

Thanks to our Poly Weekly Playmates for your financial support! We also love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly. Thanks also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

Worried and her roommate are seeing the same long-distance dom, and her roommate started dating him and then put restrictions on Worried's time with him. Should they move in together?

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• The surprising obstacles to polyamorous marriage

2:40 Lusty Guy's polyamory and politics corner

Lusty Guy provides insights on expertise: what is it, when do you have it, and what to do in its absence. To start increasing your expertise on U.S. politics, LG's suggests reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

6:50 Topic: My dom's girlfriend is domblocking me

Worried has a roommate, and they have both been playing with the same long-distance dom for two years. The roomie and the dom began dating, and the roomie began "putting restrictions" on the dom's play with Worried. Worried thinks that the roomie is fabricating issues to enforce her girlfriend status. They are talking about moving in together.

• Don't move in until this is resolved
• Why are you blaming the roommate instead of the person performing the unwanted actions, the dom?
• When you have a conversation with your roommate, go in seeking to understand and with vulnerability
• Claim your autonomy; it's your choice whether to obey your roommate's rules
• This smells like a relationship by crisis model in which whoever has the biggest crisis gets the most attention. So just ask your dom for what you want, regardless of crises. Ask for what you want!
• Are they a good roommate, outside of the dom issue? Can you easily share household chores or choose a restaurant for dinner?
• Put yourself first

18:35 Feedback

Welcome to our listeners in the US, Canada, Germany, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Poland, and New Zealand. Shout out to that one person listening in Belize, Tunisia, Luxembourg, Ecuador, and Chile!

19:15 Happy poly moment

• From S in Mexico on her family accepting her polyamory and her partner participating in her
• A COVID story from L!

22:45 Thank you to our subscribers and contributors

Welcome to our new PW Playmates, Ivo, Erin, Laurel, Monica, and Nathanael. Thanks to all our PW Playmates! Also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

23:00 Contact us

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email [email protected] and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. If you want us to teach a class at your event, want us to coach you, or want to appear on the podcast, email [email protected].

Join the conversation

To join the online conversation around this and other episodes, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly.

Why we didn't produce an episode for eights months and what to expect from Poly Weekly moving forward.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com

1:00 Host chat: why haven't we produced for eight months

• Puppy!
• COVID pandemic left me frustrated, helpless, and unmotivated to podcast
• Stay-at-home had a negative effect on our relationship for a while
• Lack of access to coping strategies. Swimply is the app to rent outdoor pools by the hour.
• George Floyd, BLM, CHAZ/CHOP, federal stormtroopers, kids being tear gassed

14:30 What Poly Weekly will be moving forward

We'll be talking more about politics when it's relevant. We believe it should be OK to talk about politics, like we believe it should be OK to talk about sex. The personal is political. And we'll be making calls to action like this one: volunteer with the critical senatorial runoff election in Georgia, donate to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight, or donate or volunteer for the candidates Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.

And the name of the show is still Poly Weekly, so we'll still be giving relationship advice, sharing happy poly moments, and addressing your feedback. We'll just also be sprinkling in more politics when it's relevant.

If that isn't your thing, we invite you to subscribe to the Multiamory podcast or listen to Esther Perel's sex podcast or any other poly- or sex-oriented podcast.

Contact us

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email [email protected] and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. If you want us to teach a class at your event, want us to coach you, or want to appear on the podcast, email [email protected].

Join the conversation

To join the online conversation around this and other episodes, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly.

Thank you to our subscribers and contributors

Thanks to all our PW Playmates! Also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

How do we practice poly responsibly during a pandemic? Is it OK to move my metamour in with me rather than not see her for the duration of enforced social isolation?

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• Found a new poly podcast, Pod Pod Cvlt Cast, with 34 long episodes!
• We've got a new puppy to keep us company during #stayathome!

3:00 Poly in the news

• Elisabeth Sheff's four-part series on monogamy in Psychology Today: CNM is not a good choice as a method to fix a relationship that is broken, Four tips for heteroflexible couples who are considering opening their relationships, Three reasons why consensual non-monogamy will not work for people who are monogamous, and her latest, Monogamy by Orientation.
• Alan's Friday Poly in the news roundup, covering primarily the coronavirus pandemic.
  • How coronavirus is impacting polyamorous relationships
  • How a polyamory expert is dating during the coronavirus pandemic
  • What it's like to isolate with your girlfriend and her other boyfriend
  • Is it irresponsible to date around during a pandemic
• Minx's advice
  • Use Zoom or Amazon Chime to host a virtual dance party or cocktail hour to stay connected
  • Use your webcam to see facial expressions
  • Try watching movies "together" over Zoom. Or send dinner to them and Zoom each other to chat during!

10:45 Contact us

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email [email protected] and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. If you want us to teach a class at your event, want us to coach you, or want to appear on the podcast, email [email protected].

11:25 Topic: should we move my metamour in with us while we socially isolate?

If you're considering cohabitation that you wouldn't have considered due to coronavirus social isolation requirements, some advice:

• As always, make sure your existing relationships are relatively healthy first.
• Ask everyone involved what they need to be happy and healthy in a communal space. Consider personal space, alone time, sexual, and physical needs.
• Discuss how finances will work in terms of rent, groceries, and other bills.
• Discuss expectations for chores and other responsibilities.
• Ask your kids how they feel about your metamour moving in.
• Have the pets been introduced? Is there a danger that they might attack each other?
• Set up regular check-ins after the move-in. These provide opportunities to bring up what it working well, what isn't, to express gratitude and appreciations, and to bring up issues before they become bigger.
• Take a break from news coverage if it increases anxiety or feelings of depression.

17:00 Join the conversation

To join the online conversation around this and other episodes, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly.

17: 05 Feedback

• S from the Boston area calls in to share a personal neologism, "schmeeling."
• Phenom calls in to ask how to get her partner to date more and make sure everything is OK. She keeps encouraging him to date, but he's not getting out as much as her.
  • There is no issue here except that maybe you feel guilty. Deal with your own guilt and stop pressuring him to date!

24:45 Pervy bird throuple

Oops! Accidentally skipped this one: Perverted Illinois bald eagle threesome threatens sanctity of marriage. What's next, hawk orgies?

26:00 Happy poly moment

Finding unexpected commonalities with your metamour!

28:45 Thank you to our subscribers and contributors

Thanks to all our PW Playmates! Also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.

What do you do when you have one romantic partner and your partner has none?

0:00 Introduction and host chat

• If you're under 18, visit scarleteen.com
• What were your favorite shows of 2019?
  • 569 Building open relationships with Dr. Liz Powell--March 18--17,397
  • 572 When your partner's jealousy precludes your polyamory--April 28--14,392
  • 568 A framework for consent--March 3--13,440
  • 576 Will poly help emotionally unavailable partners--July 1--13,019
  • All-time downloads: 7,261,446

5:15 Contact us

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email [email protected] and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. If you want us to teach a class at your event, want us to coach you, or want to appear on the podcast, email [email protected].

5:40 Topic: Feast or famine: when you have more partners than your partner

Oliver is in his first non-mono relationship with S. S had said she wouldn't date him if he were monogamous, so he gave it a try. Now he is in a relationship with T, and S has decided that "meaningless sex with strangers" aren't what she wants. Oliver is afraid S will ask him to stop seeing T, since S has no relationship partners.

Has anyone of you ever come across a situation where you've been frustrated with non-monogamy? How can you manage a situation where one partner has other partners while the other one doesn't?

• It's the people involved, not the relationship style you should question.
• Relationships don't have to be equal; they only need to be fair. Your polyamory isn't contingent upon your partner having a certain number of relationships/partners.
• Relationship ruler: is it making you a happier and healthier version of yourself?
• You can be gay and not dating. You can be poly and only dating one person (like Minx)
• You get to decide who you date and how you date them. So does she. She doesn't get to say who you date (although she can certainly establish a boundary that if you date other people, she won't be with you).

17:05 Join the conversation

To join the online conversation around this and other episodes, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We love when you review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcatcher (including Spotify!) and when you share us with your friends directly.

17:20 Happy poly moment

C writes in to share a happy poly moment about opening her relationship due to a long-distance move, and things went well!

18:50 Thank you to our subscribers and contributors

Thanks to our new PW Playmate, Tom, for his subscription! Also to Pacemaker Jane for letting us use their song Good Suspicions as our intro and outro music and to you for listening and sharing.