I have neglected the blog lately, so here's a bit of catch-up. A Stranger column about Why Nerds Rule The BDSM Community . And the one before that, about How Not To Have An Open Relationship.

Now, the podcasts. I know you like the podcasts, I read all the emails you send me about them, and that is great, because TwistedMonk and I like doing them. There have been technical problems, but Monk has wrestling manfully with the issues for months. It has been crazy-difficult to get iTunes to update the data, but we think - emphasis on the think - we have it all fixed. (With the fabulous assistance of another sexy podcaster.) So I'm publishing a fresh one to my hosting site to test it out. Please cross your fingers that iTunes recognizes it and updates the listing on their site. If not - well, back to the drawing board.

The latest Stranger column, about unproductive behaviors that certain types of male/female couples fall into, when seeking a woman to join them. How Not To Be A Dunning-Kruger Couple.

I found out today that Jezebel.com wants to link to my latest Stranger column: The Great Polyamory vs Polyfuckery Debate. I'm charmed and flattered, and quite curious to see how Jezebel readers respond to it...

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The new Stranger column, about what happens when monogamous attempt to rustle the polyamorous. It's sure to provoke either winces of recognition or indignant argument. Enjoy!

Letters To The Mistress

Dear Mistress Matisse,

I am in a poly relationship with a man I’m engaged to. We’ve been together almost three years. He is very, very vanilla and I consider myself “mocha chip”. I’m not overly kinky but it is a very important part of my sexuality.

The problem is this: we have a “no marks” policy. The rule was created back when we first started dating and he was still with his ex-girlfriend. She would get extremely jealous at any hint that I existed so bite marks and scratches were a huge no-go. We’ve kept the policy since she left, although I’ve tried to revisit it a bit lately. I have recently found a man who has…one particular toy I’m interested in trying, a violet wand. The wand can unfortunately leave a bit of a sunburn-like burn.

My partner says he’s okay with marks as long as he doesn’t have to see them; which basically means that if I play with the wand, I can’t have sex with him until the burn has gone. His argument is he doesn’t want the reminder of the things I’ve done with other guys.

Now, I have found traces of his other girlfriends in his room. Once I had to point out a necklace one of his girlfriends had left on his bed. This happens fairly often given that he’s a messy person (so am I) and I’ve gotten used to it. The necklace was from a girlfriend I didn’t like so I had some trouble with it and he told me I’d have to get used to it as it would happen from time to time.

So I’m seeing a double standard here. He can leave traces of other girls in his room and I have to get used to it (which I have) but I’m not allowed to leave traces of other men on me (which I haven’t, yet). I’ve tried to broach the subject with him and he doesn’t seem to get the double standard. Recently when he brought up the no-marks policy I flat out told him “so I’m not going to find any more necklaces then?”

I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking of refusing to have sex with him whenever he leaves traces of his other partners in his room. I don’t want to do this as I know its passive aggressive and silly; especially since it doesn’t bug me that much.

I worry that this is a sign of things to come. I went to a kink-themed party at a local bar and he refused sex with me for almost a week after, citing it felt “weird” to have my sexual energy from the party transfer to him.

Is having sex with a t-shirt on my only option to have my kink and fuck him too?

Here's the technique part of my reply to this: Violet wands do not always leave marks. Occasionally they do. But - especially if you keep moving the wand around, and don’t keep it in one place for more than a few seconds - it probably won’t. I bet you could have this man test your skin someplace inconspicuous, like your lower leg, and see if you seem terribly prone to being marked by it. That would inform your future play choices.

That said: your fiancé needs to get right on over himself. This is indeed a double standard. And yes, you’re right, it’s a bad sign for the future, so draw a line in the sand. I don’t think you should refuse to have sex with him over things that don’t really bother you. I think you should just do whatever kind of kink you want, and if Mr. Vanilla can’t handle the “energy”, then he just won’t get to look at (or have access to) your pretty naked self, will he? The loss is his, not yours.

It is rare for anyone to willingly give up a situation where they are getting everything they want (like: having sex with more than one person and not having to hide anything), and nothing they don’t want (like: seeing some evidence of your partner doing the same, and having to handle some feelings of jealousy about that). Some people would rather field irritated remarks from a lover than relinquish such an arrangement.

Luckily, you have complete power over the only thing that matters: your behavior. Tell him, calmly and kindly, that you are going to do BDSM play that may occasionally leave a mark or two. If he is offended by looking at you, you can fuck him with the lights off. Or you could blindfold him. Or – and I think this is the best option - he can just grow up, work out his issues, and give as good as he gets.

Letters: Advice From An Expert

So today, I decided to let my very best friend in the whole world take a crack at the Letters file. In addition to just being a smart cookie, Miss K also happens to be a therapist, which makes her a handy pal to have. Her advice is advice worth taking. Thus, without further ado...

For the past two years I have been dating a man in what can only be called an abusive relationship with a woman he's been with for over a decade. Typically the abuse, which from what I can tell started about five years ago, is verbal, but it is occasionally backed up by threats of or actual violence (such as punching, throwing things or biting).

I've discussed the abuse issues with him, but if you know anyone who's been in such a relationship for a long time, you know how futile that can be. So I've been continuing to see him, enjoy him, and offer him whatever support I can while not entangling myself in their issues. Since my relationship with him is long-distance, I've managed to draw a pretty thick line between me and her.

About a month ago, she found a book I'd given him on emotional abuse. You can imagine the consequences. Their relationship is one with a veto, and apparently the veto has no time limit, because she's used it. The thing is, he wants to continue to see me, but in secret. I've always considered myself an ethical, upstanding poly person, and normally I wouldn't consider cheating. But every rule has its exceptions, and I'm wondering if this is one of them. In another situation I'd insist that he stand up to her and tell her he plans to consider seeing me if he does in fact want to. But he'll be punished--severely and for a long time--if he stands up to her and says he wants to continue to see me. And while I don't have any illusions that I can save him (until he's ready to save himself), I also don't want to withdraw the love and support that could eventually help him find the strength and courage to leave this situation.

In short, my ethics about how to deal with a friend and lover suffering in an abusive relationship are in conflict with my ethics about honesty and disclosure in multiple relationships. What's an ethical slut to do?

***

Miss K says: An ethical slut must do what's right for herself, and allow others the opportunity to do the same for themselves. You must consider this as any other poly relationship: If you would not see someone secretly under normal circumstances, you must not do so here either. Your love and support, while valuable, can still be made available to him if/when he decides to change his circumstances.

In the meantime, he is an adult who knows his options, and only when the pain of maintaining the status quo becomes greater than the pain of changing will he make a move. Your removal from the situation may turn out to be just the thing that tips those scales. Besides, who are you to keep him from his misery?

It comes down to this: You are not his only resource. You are not even his most important resource - that title goes to his own will to survive. Step back, maintain your ethics and open-heartedness, and let his process unfold.

Another podcast, and another riff from Monk about how I’m playing with my nipple. Even though I’m not.

Then, letters: the first is from a listener asking about jealousy and threesome sex/BDSM. Threesomes are fraught with peril, in my opinion. The best threesome experiences I have had were in situations with three previously-uninvolved people.* The emotional stakes are considerably lower when no one has ever slept with anyone else before. An established couple plus one? That’s a very tricky situation. But it's a common fantasy, so Monk and I step through some of the ways it could happen.

Next, a request for guidance from a BDSM person who’s wondering about how to answer her friend’s question: “Am I cut out to be a slave?”

The last letter asks, “Is it fair for a people in a polyamory group to veto the partners of other partners?” Monk and I both have some opinions about the term “veto” and making rules that create the illusion of control over other people. I predict they will not be universally agreed-with, but what would be the point of listening if you already agreed with everything we said?

About twenty minutes.


*I did have a three-way romp not long ago that was quite, quite lovely, and it was with two people who were - let us say they were previously involved, if not precisely a couple. But - they are both exceptional people.

Mistress Matisse’s Tips For Happy Polyamory, #17

Thou Shalt Not Oust The Incumbent Partner from his/her living space so you can have a date with the mutual lover. This is a violation of important poly tenets Root For The Home Team and (the self-explanatory) Be Very, Very Nice To The Primary.

I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons my poly life runs rather smoothly is that we have physical space to spread out in. The Big House is, as you may have inferred, fairly big. And I have my own domain as well. (Don’t think for a minute having space for my poly adventures didn’t figure strongly into my choice of workspaces.)

Because nothing creates disgruntlement like a situation where Partner A wants to come home from a long day at work, flop on the couch, eat pizza, and play video games, and Partner B is running around lighting candles and putting on sexy music because they have a date – with someone else. Partner A may very well be able to go over to a buddy’s house and flop/eat/game over there, but there’s probably going to be some resentment about that.

And resentment is what kills relationships. People think it’s the big things, but it’s not. You can forgive your lover One Big Mistake a lot more easily than you’ll forgive ten thousand niggling little irritations.

For one thing, petty resentment is what erodes the sex in relationships. (Any romantic relationships, not just poly ones.) It’s because it’s the easiest thing to deny a partner without actually having to cop to there being something wrong. Most of the time, people don’t consciously think, “Oh, fine – make me wash your dirty dishes again? Turn the TV up to eardrum-shattering levels even though I asked you not to again? See if you get laid tonight.” But the resentment takes root, and it is subtly poisonous.

Everyone annoys his/her partner sometimes. But if you want to be happily poly, you should strive not to let your other involvements impinge on your sweetie’s preferences and comfort, and that starts with not denying them the simple creature comforts of home.

If you're the non-domestic partner, make sure this isn't happening. You do not want the resident partner to be feeling resentful about something as easily fixed as physical space/privacy and start associating that feeling with polyamory in general and you in particular.

Therefore, if you want to have a hot date with someone who lives with a partner, have the date elsewhere.

From a Letter...

...I find myself 9 years into a triad with myself (male) and my original partner of 17 years and our other partner of 9 years and I'm struggling with a terrible bout of jealousy. It's one of those watershed times in our lives. We're opening an art gallery and I just got done with the total renovation of it myself and am exhausted, at least 2 of us are in the midst of an in-depth re-evaluation of our lives and choices, my original partner and I..... wait. ..... blah blah blah..... that has nothing to do with jealousy.

To the point and question, since I know you have a very busy life and don't know me at all.... do you have a way to deal with jealousy when it comes up? I'm 49 and have never really felt it but am having crazy, unsupportable jealousy with one of my partners. I'm asking about everyone I know how they deal with it in the hopes of finding a method that works well with me.

First let me say: you’ve been in a triad for nine years? You, dear man, should be proud of yourself. I think triads are the most difficult of all polyamory structures to sustain long term. So that speaks well for your ability to create solutions to your current issue.

Jealousy is an unpleasant emotion – you know that already. The thing about jealousy, though, is that it’s chameleon-like. It’s a symptom of a problem, but what exactly the problem is varies greatly.

This letter is fairly brief. I think you meant to be respectful of my time, which I do appreciate. But without having a hunch about why you’re feeling this way, it’s hard for me to offer solutions.

Does the partner you’re feeling jealous about have a new partner? If that is so, then I’d give you advice about handling a new person in your partner’s life. A lot of poly people have written about that, though, so perhaps you’ve already read up on the usual solutions.

However, I have seen people become jealous even when their partners do not have a new love interest. You allude to a lot of big life-changes, and then you dismiss them. Not so fast. Those can be very stressful, and they might be causing some generalized anxiety that is manifesting itself in jealousy. Our brains are odd – if we’re feeling anxious about something and we’re not clearly in touch with that, sometimes we unconsciously re-route the anxiety to, shall we say, a different exit. Especially if, to our unconscious mind, that problem seems like one that can be more easily fixed.

For example, someone who recently suffered the death of a loved one might have a flare-up of jealousy. The mind says, “I feel the pain of a loss, and there’s nothing I can do to make that pain stop. I’m afraid of feeling this again. Thus, I’ll attempt to control the behavior of my partner, so that I don’t lose them as well. That will distract me from my pain and soothe my anxiety.”

If you have had some loss, or you think that you might soon have one, then that might be causing this jealousy.

The other thing that occurs to me is: if this is really an unprecedented problem, it's very strong, and it seems to have no very definite cue, then this could be a brain-chemistry issue. Now, I don’t think that every emotional problem must have a pharmaceutical solution. And I am not attempting to diagnose you. But jealousy is just another word for fear. Or, as the medical profession would put it, anxiety. So when I hear “crazy, unsupportable jealousy” one of the possible interpretations I can put on that is: “I’m having intense anxiety, I can’t manage it easily, and it’s negatively impacting my life.”

If the usual methods of handling jealousy are not working, it’s not getting better with time, and the jealousy is really impacting your daily functioning, then my next suggestion is: go to your doctor and tell her/him that you are having trouble with anxiety and you’re wondering about medication.

If you can afford it, I would also suggest you find a good counselor. Finding one who is open-minded enough to not try to push you towards monogamy as the solution to your problem is the challenge here. If you want to see a talk-therapist and you can’t find anyone who seems poly-friendly where you are, drop me a note and tell where you live, and I’ll see if I know anyone. Alternately, you might find a poly-friendly therapist who would do phone sessions with you.

I hope that’s helpful to you.

Links to writings about managing jealousy in polyamorous relations. One, two, three, four and five.

I’m off to Vegas until Friday, so while I jet away, enjoy a new podcast. This one is letters from readers with questions about polyamory.

First letter: when to disclose to a potential new partner that you are poly, if they don’t know already.

And then: dealing with weirdness from your partner’s other partners. (AKA “metamours”.)

It’s a lot of unbridled snark with (hopefully) some nuggets of wisdom. And all admittedly somewhat fueled by alcoholic beverages. I am wincing slightly as I listen to myself tipsily hold forth on these, so I think that means I must make a ban on drinking + podcasting in the future.

But I will not be podcasting in Vegas! Bye!

EDIT: The formatting is coming out weird on the podcast page, not sure why. But it downloads okay, just click on the little icon.

Another podcast! This one's about polyamory. First, Monk and I answer a question about time-management for poly people: how many partners is too many? And then: the difficulty of finding polyamorous partners when you're very young. (Meaning: in your twenties.)

I feel compelled to note: In this last round of podcast taping, Monk brought alcoholic beverages to the studio. That's a switch - usually we're drinking Rock Star or Red Bull, or else just tons of super-strong coffee (him) and diet Mountain Dew (me). I have no idea why he decided we should have cocktails instead of caffeine while we taped this batch, but we did.

So we had great fun, but I fear they made us even less inhibited than usual. Which is not very much, anyway. Thank god we we don't do video blogging.

But if you're offended by anything I say in this podcast (or any of the next three), just remember: it's Monk's fault. Really!

Polyamory in Pop Culture

MTV aired its "True Life" documentary titled "I'm Polyamorous." Poly in The News blog has a write-up of it.

And another episode of the web-cast series about polyamorous people, "Family."

Also: Monk and I are (finally) recording more podcasts tonight! Send us your questions about poly, kink, sex work, or anything else weird, and we'll answer them together - while making a lot of dirty jokes, of course...

I was reading a message board lately and saw someone talking about “open poly versus closed poly.” And I thought: what is the point of that term? It really baffles me.

“Closed polyamory,” as I understand it, is: more than two people in a sexual/romantic relationship who do not have sex or become romantically involved with anyone else outside their group.

If that’s how the people involved want to do their poly, that’s completely and utterly fine with me. But - why is it necessary to stick the word closed on the front of it? I do not see that system of poly as being somehow so different than other systems that it needs a discrete category. It just sounds like the speaker is trying to minimize the situation. “Okay, so we’re not monogamous. But we’re like monogamy + one. We opened up our relationship and let just this one other person in (or just these two other people, or however many). And then we closed the door again, boom! So we’re not like those other poly people, all open and stuff.”

Well, the people in the original dyad had to be open at least long enough to find another person, didn’t they? And let’s be realistic, most relationships – both mono and poly - end. So what happens when one of them does? Do the people remaining in a relationship switch over to being open again until they meet someone else, and then go back to being closed? If the relationship can be opened, then what is the advantage of designating it as closed in the first place? It’s not like people are taxis, and have to turn the light on the roof off and on.

I have no quarrel with words like triad, quad, or group marriage. I think those are clear, useful terms. And I'm mostly okay with the term polyfidelity, although it always reminds me of the movie High Fidelity with John Cusack.

As I said, people get to do poly however they want. If you want to have a designated group of people who have sex only amongst themselves, more power to you. But when phrases seem designed to minimize something, or distance the reality of a situation, then those phrases bother me. They remind me of chicks who have girlfriends but say, “Oh, I’m not really a lesbian, I just love her.” I have never met any homophobes who gave out The First Pussy Is Free! exemptions, so why bother with the limp denials? Likewise, I have never met an anti-poly person who would say, "Well, if you're just non-monogamous with these few people, that's all right."

I could channel John Cleese in the Bring Out Your Dead scene from Monty Python and The Holy Grail. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know.” In my opinion, you got the name, you might as well play the game.

Reader Letters

I've been reading your blog and columns for quite a while now and have found your thoughts on BDSM, sex work, and polyamory extremely interesting. However, there's one subject that you don't talk much about, and that, in multiple-partner relationships is pretty critical: STD's. I know you're not a doctor, and I understand that we all have to make our own decisions about what risks are acceptable, but I'm very curious about what precautions you and people you know consider to be reasonable when people have a lot of partners, either serially or in parallel. Obviously, condom use and regular STD screenings are important. But how do people deal with the risk of diseases that can't be blocked very effectively by condoms, particularly herpes? I'd be very interested to hear what you have to say on the subject.

I had two immediate responses to this letter. The first one to reflect on how often people ask me questions that really, they already know the answers to. The writer expresses it perfectly: “we all have to make our own decisions about what risks are acceptable.” I am no different than anyone else in that regard, and neither are my partners.

Take me and Monk, for example. Monk rides a motorcycle. I drive a car. I think a car is safer. Monk admits that it probably is, but he likes his bike.

And indeed, he had an accident a little over two years ago and broke his collarbone. But he’d been careful. He’d worn his helmet and his leather gear, and because he mitigated his risks that way, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. His passenger wasn’t badly hurt, and I think that was more important to him than his own injury.

He still rides his bike. I don’t want to ride a motorcycle, but I think if he wants to, he should get to. Even if I occasionally worry about his safety. Which I do even though I myself could just as easily be hurt in a car accident.

It’s not always logical, what we think is an acceptable risk and what isn’t. You gather the information, you think about what’s important to you, and you make your choices. If I was going to drive someone somewhere and they said "Before I get in the car, you have to guarantee me that we won't be in an accident", I'd think they were being foolish. I've never been in a really bad car accident, but there are no guarantees in life. If you can't deal with that, don't get into a car with me. Or anyone.

Sex is no different. I wear a seat belt - I use condoms. I am careful when I drive - I am careful when I have sex. But I don’t twist myself into a fever of anxiety every time I engage in either activity. I won’t live my life that way.

(My second response was this: perhaps I’m misreading the intent, but my initial interpretation of this writer’s question was that she wanted me to detail exactly how I am sexual with my partners. Like, exactly. But surely – surely! – she isn’t really asking me about my own private sexual practices and the practices of my partners? I must be reading this wrong. Because I would never dream of sending a stranger an email asking them to publish such highly personal information on a website. That would be very inappropriate. I’m sure the writer didn’t mean to imply that she wanted that.)

Basically, you manage risks by managing risks. Worrying about risks isn't managing them, and that's a mistake I see often people make. They don't do anything - they just worry. So whatever it is you want to do, this is my advice: get very well-educated about it. Assess the situation as it is, not as you wish it would be. Consider all the possible outcomes of your choices, from perfect to catastrophic. Think about what you'd do in each of them. Talk to the other people involved. And accept that every day you’re alive, you’re taking risks.

The One-Penis Policy column continues to generate a great deal of comment, both on the Stranger page and on various social-networking sites. I’m mildly surprised at the level of emotion my opinion seems to provoke in people. So – not that I think this is going to make the people who are upset about it feel any better – but let me just clarify a few points.

If you haven’t read the column, this will make no sense to you. Everything here is in relation to that article. Go read that, then come back.

***

First, note that we’re not talking about acknowledged, full-time D/s relationships, that’s a whole other discussion. Assume that 24/7 dominance and submission do not come into play here. I would have thought that since I didn’t mention D/s anywhere in the column, people would understand that it wasn’t a factor, but that seems to have been unclear.

I am not suggesting that the woman in the hypothetical couple is obligated to have sex with other men, okay? She gets to make that decision. And you know what, if she chooses not to sleep with other guys because she knows her male partner wouldn’t like it – well, that’s her choice.

Of course it’s her choice anyway. But there is a huge difference between your partner saying, “No way can you sleep with other men. I cannot handle that" and your partner saying, “It would be hard for me. I’d rather you didn’t. But the choice is yours.” One is pressure, and one is stating a preference.

We can get off on a whole tangent about how much influence it’s healthy to let your partner’s feelings have over your decision, but that’s a somewhat different conversation. I've heard the argument that it's a loving thing to do, that the woman in case is sacrificing her wishes to help ease her partner into polyamory. I'm not saying that can never be true.

(The woman-easing-man-into-poly idea actually amuses me greatly, given how that flies in the face of the myth that women don't really want to be poly, but men get them to be so unwillingly. Hah.)

So if a m/f couple said "Okay, for six months, she's going to date only other women, and then we'll see how that goes and how we feel," I would not think that was terrible. Setting a fixed time for the training period makes it much more palatable to me.

And notice also that he's not dating anyone. Although if he wanted to date other men, I think that would also be perfectly reasonable.

But a permanent system in which the man is explicitly permitted to fuck other women, but the woman is explicitly forbidden to fuck other men? How exactly is that easing anyone into anything?

I am utterly unimpressed with any talk about how it’s really about STDs or pregnancy. For one thing, both those can be controlled with a pretty high degree of success. Trust me on that, I’ve been doing it myself for years. Sexual health education, careful management, and planning ahead eliminate a lot of the risks in multiple-partner situations.

Besides, it takes two to pass an STD, or get someone pregnant. I find it hypocritical in the extreme that a man would want to have other female sexual partners himself – thus exposing them to those possible risks – but say it’s too much risk for his original partner. Frankly, I think that type of attitude should not be dignified with the name polyamory.

If the original piece pissed you off, what I’m going to say now will really inflame you: Just because two people are engaged in a certain system of behavior does not make it “all right, because it’s their choice.” There actually is such a thing as a bad personal choice.

So yes, I do think there are better ways and worse ways to run a relationship. Outside of consensual D/s, I think it’s inherently better to have as few “rules” as possible for other adult human beings that one is having an equal partnership with. I think that’s being controlling – not in the sexy way – and I think it negatively impacts both people involved.

I think if there’s an obvious inequity in the relationship, it should at the very least be openly discussed, and it should be a goal for both people to bring about a change to that.

And I think the basis for the One Penis Policy is basically insecurity and sexism.

Now, feeling of insecurity and sexism are both pretty common (to both men and women), and neither of those things makes someone a Bad Person. But they are traits that can be changed, and being less insecure and less sexist will make someone a better person.

Who am I to make all these judgments? I’m me. Who else would I need to be? I’m a person, I have an opinion, and I'm talking about it. Why shouldn't I? Obviously I have no power to compel anyone else’s choices, nor do I have any wish to. But that fact that people are getting upset that I dared to state this opinion is very interesting, isn’t it?

This week's column in The Stranger - which is sure to be a flame-inducing free-for-all, based on the thread a mere mention of it spawned on a social site I visit - about a system of polyamory I'm not particularly in favor of: The One-Penis Policy.

Random Pull From The Mailbag

I reached your article from a mention of "hot-bi-babe syndrome" (which term I was not familiar with) in a Best-of-Craigslist post and an internet search. I found your article interesting and informative, but was confused by your statement that "I'm poly and bi, and there's no way I'd be in a triad relationship, mostly because I think it's an extremely difficult arrangement to sustain."

My understanding is that polyamory is usually defined as a relationship involving three or more persons. Ah, a moment, I just checked Merriam-Webster, and they have "the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time". OK, I think I am able to answer my own question.

I was going to ask if a four or more person relationship didn't have some of the difficulties of triads, and that was why you made that statement. But you are saying you are open to having more than one relationship partner, but having those relationships in one multiple-partner relationship is too difficult, in your opinion, so you are interested in one or more relationships, each having its own partner, without cross-connection. Am I on the right track?

Well, I think you get it, although you're phrasing it a little oddly. I would not say a triad was one relationship. But that's mere semantics.

To say it's "too difficult" is putting it mildly. My observation is that it's extremely difficult to conduct a long-term triad. Not saying impossible, but very challenging. I have never done a quad relationship (four people), although in some ways, I think it might be a trifle easier than a triad.

And you may also say that I am considerably more than open and interested. I have never in my life been willingly monogamous. I tried, once or twice, a long time ago. It never worked, because I am not wired that way.

So I've been identifying myself as polyamorous since I was about twenty. I have used different words to talk about that, as the language and culture of polyamory grew and became more sophisticated. And it took me years and years to get good at being poly. Along the way, I made every mistake there is, and I'm sure I invented a few new ones.

Now, I have ongoing intimate relationships that are sexual and loving - and yes, kinky - with more than one person. I don't require a lifetime commitment, but I do not generally do one-night stands. I'm definitely not a swinger, and I don't usually go to bed with more than one person at a time. So yes, all of relationships are quite separate.

In closing, I must just say to you: thank you so very, very much for looking up the word polyamory. I am heartened to see someone actually use the vast array of information at their fingertips, instead of sending me an email saying, "hey whatz X-word-that-I-could-just-fucking-Google mean?" I am so sincerely pleased and happy that you did that and told me about it. Yay you.

The latest installment of the web-cast series about polyamory, Family.


I can't say I really understand where this is going, plot-wise. But it seems to be getting good press: Newsweek did a nice piece on the Seattle producers. And Dan Savage weighed in on it here. So I won't quibble on artistic grounds...

Complete and unedited email I got recently...

SUBJECT: my 3 guesses at what your fetish is that you indulge with Milo

1. He is an amputee
2. He has a very large/small cock (is that 2 guesses?)
3. He is Chinese

I get the most weirdly random email. I’m usually good at connecting apparent non sequiturs to a subject that makes sense, but this one took me a full minute or so.

What happens is: someone Googles some odd term or other, finds a page of my blog, reads it, but doesn’t note the date. And then they write to me commenting about a post from, say, five years ago. As if it would still be uppermost in my mind.

First things first: this letter is made of fail. The idea of race as a fetish is offensive to me. I am also repulsed by the idea of fetishizing people because they have lost a limb. For the record, I have had partners of all races, and I have been sexual with handicapped people. But people are not fetish objects.

I suppose you could say that someone fetishized cocks of a certain size, because cocks are sort of objects. Sort of. They happen to be attached to people, so I’m not crazy about that characterization. I’ll allow it, given that the owners and operators of cocks often speak of them as separate entities with autonomous government, and we're playing fast and loose with the literal definition of the word "fetish" anyway. But clearly the writer does not understand that women don’t usually fetishize body parts the way men sometimes do.

Other point of failure: this writer is also confusing two different people. Milo was a man I mentioned playing with, but Mike was a secondary partner of mine a little more than five years ago, before I started seeing Monk.

And Mike was not into BDSM, which I mentioned in a post I wrote about him, and I said there was a certain thing about him that I found particularly sexy, but I declined to say what it was. I was purposely rather oblique, but I’m willing say more now.

There were plenty of obvious reasons to like Mike: he was handsome, charming, intelligent, and he also proved to be good in bed.

He was also completely not-jealous and drama-free. That was a huge issue to me at the time - even bigger than it is now, which is still pretty big – because my previous relationship had ended in a firestorm of jealousy and drama.

Because of that, I spent several years skittering nervously away from anyone who even hinted they might get jealous of me. Someone I barely knew sent me a letter that was (I believe) intended to be sexy, and in it they mentioned being possessive. I think they were trying to impress me with their intensity, or something. But talk about the wrong thing to say! I all but took out a restraining order on them.

But Mike was perfectly fine with me showing up at random intervals, having a passionate evening, and then vanishing. No next-date setting, not much communication in between, and absolutely, positively no talk about where is our relationship going? It was great.

So you might say what I fetishized about Mike was his non-possessiveness. However, he did do this one thing that turned me on. He welded. I’m serious: he’s a metal artist, and he welded and worked in metal, and watching him do that was very sexy to me.

I do have a mild machine-sex fetish. Mild meaning: I rarely do anything about it, but it's fun to think about and I often think pictures of it are sexy.

But what I really have is a competence fetish. If I watch someone do something, and they are clearly very good at it, that can be a big turn-on. For example, watching Max do awesome rope bondage on people was what made me first say “Hey, that guy’s kinda cool.” I once got sprung on someone because she was a pool shark. Watching her just clean people’s clocks on the green felt table got me tingly. Looking at Mike’s art, and his tools, and seeing him do the whole make-the-sparks-fly welding thing? Yeah, that made the sparks fly for me, definitely. We had sex in his shop any number of times.

It was a charming arrangement and it was the perfect re-entry relationship. It ran its course, as relationships usually do. But it ended amicably, and Mike renewed my faith in the idea that it was possible to have a fun and affectionate casual-dating relationship without it leading to the type of insane drama that requires lawyers.

So would I get turned on by just any pool hustler or metal worker? No. But doing something manifestly well is sexy. Unfortunately for this person, he is demonstrating that letter-writing is not a skill he can parlay into hot dates.