531 - What's Wrong with Enjoying Consensual Sex with Multiple People? Listener Q&A

Hello Multiamory folks and friends, it's Dedeker here with some exciting news. for my next somatic therapy retreat, for my next trick. oh we're going to spain that's right orit krug and i are hosting a somatic retreat especially for polyamorous folks that's going to be in beautiful northern spain from september 22nd to the 25th 2025.

We're going to be spending four days together in a beautiful natural setting and Arete and I are going to guide you through somatic practices that can help shift long held patterns, and help you develop some powerful tools for navigating non-monogamy with more ease and confidence. We handle all the details so that you can be fully present.

Your accommodations are taken care of. You don't have to clean or cook. All your meals are taken care of. We really want people to feel as cared for as possible. You're welcome to come solo or to bring a partner or to bring all of your partners. Everybody is welcome. We also offer sliding scale pricing and if cost is a concern for you, please don't let that stop you from applying. We're happy to explore options that work for you and for your financial situation.

So we already have people signing up for this one, which is nuts. We do have limited spots. So if you're interested, go to multiamory.com slash retreat. apply today, mention the Multiamory podcast when you apply. Again, that's multiamory.com slash retreat. And I hope that I can see you in Spain.

talking to Dedeker. Like, I'll say I love you, and, you know, we say that often, but it does feel like it's a little bit of this light, easy to say, doesn't have a ton of meaning. Like, yes, it's meaningful that we say that, but it's not like... I really want to convey how much I care about her. Saying I love you is actually not my go-to.

Maybe that'll get thrown in there, but it's usually being more specific of saying something like, I love that you're someone I can come to every day and I love how your brain works. Or maybe I use the word love in it, but it's something more specific, a little deeper than that. And I wonder if there might be something there for the two of you as well to look at what are the things that can be said to convey that depth and that kind of intensity or that long-lasting stableness.

feeling like looking for ways to say that maybe even that involves the word love but not in that general sense of I love you Welcome to the Multi-Amory Podcast. I'm Jace. I'm Emily. And I'm Dedeker. We believe in looking to the future of relationships. not maintaining the status quo of the past. Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you, and we're here for you.

On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're answering questions from you, our wonderful listeners. Today, we will be discussing various things such as how to identify as polyamorous while you're in a monogamous relationship. how to get people to understand that polyamory isn't all about sex, and, of course, attempting to answer the age-old question, what is love? Or rather, what do people mean when they say it, or why would they choose not to say it?

If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, check out our book, Multiamory Essential Tools for Modern Relationship. It covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. And you can find links to buy it in print form, ebook form, and audiobook form narrated by our very own Emily at multiemory.com slash book or wherever you like to get your book.

a quick disclaimer before we dive into these questions we've spent a lot of time reading up on healthy relationships and communication but we are not experts we're not mind readers our advice is based solely on the limited information that is sent to us so of course take it with a grain of salt

Everybody's situation is unique. If any of our advice feels like it might apply to you, we do encourage you to still use your own judgment, seek professional help if needed. And also a quick note that these questions have been edited for time and clarity.

Alrighty, here's our first question. I loved your song, Jess. It was very beautiful. And that is what it pertains to. Have you met polyamorous or ethically non-monogamous people who refuse to use the word love because if it doesn't mean the same thing for everyone, it doesn't mean anything? What do you think of that stand?

I have a great relationship with my partner Finn, except for one tiny thing. He refuses to use the L word because he firmly believes that it doesn't mean anything, since people use it to mean different things. And he has a history of being manipulated and guilt-tripped in past relationships because of love, so he prefers using all other love languages.

For him, kind gestures, attentions, gifts, etc. are a lot more meaningful, and I understand that, but he is also so firm on his refusal to say, I love you. I don't doubt that he does, but if he does, why not say it? I'm used to it now, but sometimes feel like he wants to say it, but prefers hanging on to his belief that it means nothing. Have you ever encountered that? I love your show. Thank you so much for doing this. Love Ball from Montreal. Love Ball. That's a great sign-off name.

Before we dive into the nitty gritty, I want to ask the two of you your history, stance, feelings about either giving an I love you verbally or receiving an I love you verbally in relationships. Go. Way too quickly. Historically. It's tough. I do tend to be, I guess, slightly on the quicker side. Maybe not as much as Emily. Actually, definitely not as much as Emily. Okay, well, hold on. Hold on to back up. When we're saying quick, what do we mean?

Like a month in. Okay. But yeah, I mean, I'll continue though on that because it has changed recently, but Jace, please, please continue. And I was going to say, I think mine used to be like that. And then some years ago started. Being like, I'm going to wait a little more before dropping that into things. However... I tend to be in this camp of, yes, love means a lot of different things, and I think that's okay. We'll get into this a little bit more. But so I will use it in certain situations.

that are not just romantic love as well. And I do tend to use it a little more liberally because I do feel it. Like I do feel that sense of like, I care about this person in sort of a deeper, more profound way than just I care about them because they're a human being that I like.

that there's kind of this represents this little extra level when it comes to you know friends or family or even specifically with Dedeker's family or like Emily's family like your mom there's this thing of like I love those people and I might say that sometimes

But some people might be weirded out by that. And so it's kind of that, I don't know, I guess I tend to be on the little bit more liberal side of it. I'm curious to hear from Dedeker, though, before we go back to Emily. Sure. I could see... a alternate universe not too far away from this universe where I totally take the same stance as this person's partner where I just decide I'm just not going to use the word at all I'm going to excuse myself

from using this nebulous concept and I'll find other ways to express and receive love. That isn't who I am in this universe, but I could see not too far away because who I am in this universe is, okay, here, we're going to go on a journey.

So... Okay, listeners may not know that all three of us love the 1995 film First Night, starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery and Julie Ormond. Wonderful. Classic. Classic. Go watch it. Has a woman ever looked more beautiful than Julia Armand in that movie? Or Richard Garrett. Sean Connery, everyone is firing on all cylinders in that movie. Anyway, it's an Arthurian.

legend type of film. You know, we're exploring the love triangle between Guinevere, Arthur, and Lancelot. Classic, classic, classic, right? And there's a scene in the film where Lancelot has to go through this gauntlet, like this literal obstacle course gauntlet that's being set up for people's entertainment where there's all these like swinging axes.

and stuff it's like very american ninja warrior style right but more deadly but more deadly right and and sort of the conceit of it is that whoever can get through the gauntlet will get a kiss from lady guinevere which she has consented to she's not being coerced into that And then he like makes it through the gauntlet and then she still refuses to kiss him.

That's kind of what I do in romantic relationships with people as far as when I'm going to say I love you to them. Wait, wait. So somebody goes through the literal gauntlet for you and you still chew and you have the carrots. You have the carrot of potential love, but you still take it away and rescind that carrot once they have gone through this gauntlet for you. It's never that.

It's never that obvious. I'm never directly saying to someone, hey, if you do X, Y, and Z, then I will feel comfortable enough to say I love you. But I have heard you put specific parameters on that. Like, for instance, one has to have gone through some sort of like, I don't know, fight's the right word, but like challenge in the relationship and then come out on the other side.

To make sure that that is something that you're able to do with that person before you can feel real love for them. Which I found such an interesting distinction that that is where your mind goes.

Well, yes, okay, because for me, and I suspect that this might be the case with this person's partner, there's definitely an element of... safety that I am seeking with somebody. I know that no one can be like 100% safe. all the time. Right. But like, yeah, I think in a relationship, I tend to seek a sense of I've seen you on not a good day and you've seen me on not a good day and we're still here and we didn't.

scare each other off and we weren't horrible to each other and that to me feels there's enough safety that i feel comfortable being like I love you, right? When I think about your parameters, Jace, of using this word love to express that I feel a sense of care for someone that's outside of just that I like them and I like spending time with them. I can relate to that feeling, but when I think about attaching the word love to it, my skin crawls. I feel really uncomfortable with that.

How many people have you said those words to, Dedeker? Oh, you want me to count right now? No, I mean, well, on air. And I also want a clarification, Deniker, do you mean that it makes you feel weird when you think about it in a more romantic context or even with? In a more romantic romantic context. Okay, just in that context.

Because I feel like your family says a lot more I love you. It's like all your extended family does than mine does. And so that was going to surprise me for a second. But I guess if you're just looking at romantic relationships.

could see that with you well but but i want to so i want to tie this thread back to the question because i think there's something of course the thing that i see is oh there's something going on here with like a fundamental feeling of safety on both sides It's both the partner who has this history where the word love itself sounds like maybe it's been weaponized or it's been abused.

in some form or fashion and so this person is seeking safety by stepping way way way away from using that word then the question asker even though they don't explicitly say it I would say that there's probably something that feels safe about being able to hear that from your partner and to hear it actually deliberately, explicitly expressed verbally, not just through all the other love languages.

Yeah, wow, that's pretty impressive to kind of see that on either end. And absolutely, I think you're right, because Yeah, love, like knowing that somebody loves you, quote unquote.

can maybe instill a feeling of safety and like they're not just going to cut and run because that love is keeping them there to a degree or you know they made a decision to sort of place this word or this feeling or have come to this feeling and therefore they're not going to decide to leave as easily as they might had they not been in love with you, I guess. But also, I mean, not really having a concrete answer or knowledge of what it is may feel a little unsafe.

and that your representation of love is different than mine, and therefore I'm just not going to say it because I think that it has become an overused word, for instance. Or something that is devoid of the meaning that perhaps we once placed on it. Or it also changes throughout time. And there's like lustful love. Like, I think that that is honestly what happens to me.

and has happened to me, is that I am feeling all of this NRE, and all of this intensity, and so I immediately have to tell somebody I love them. But then... maybe six months down the line that feeling is not the same anymore at all and maybe sometimes it's not even there much at all and then it's a question of like wait a minute what what am i left with here

Where does the love go? Does it turn into something else? Or was it actually never really there to begin with? That's the safety part that has been something that I've been contemplating a lot recently. And I think the two of you just represented a really good example of these two extremes that I think is most often where people get stuck with this term is that there's this...

I want to use the word love because it represents intensity. In a rom-com, it's that intensity of feeling that leads you to say I love you. And then there's the love that means this safety and security and it's almost like you can't even have that until you're past the NRE phase or at least some of it into this yeah we've we've gone through some hard times too and it isn't just all intensity and there's more of this and that's what love represents in that context.

And I feel like that's most often the conflict that I see. And I don't know what happened with this person's partner, but my guess is that it was based on that. That, like, I love you is said out of this feeling of intensity, and then someone said, ah, well, that means this safety and security, whatever thing, and so therefore you have to behave in this certain way, or you're bad because you didn't behave in that way, or something.

And so I think we've hit on a big part of the core of it. But I do have a little issue with this person's partner with Finn. Just on the face of it, saying that I won't use the word because it means different things to different people. And I would say you can't use any word. I just think that's a week. No more words allowed. That's a weak argument. It's like, yeah, sure, there's certain things where we can point to...

more concretely, like a chair. But there's also a lot of variations on a chair, and it's like, what really is a chair? And that's an easy one. That's an easy one. It's not about the logic of it. I know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, Finn, I totally get why you feel this way, and Dedeker in an alternate universe. She might feel that way, I'd still love her, but...

I'm just saying, would she love you, though? Maybe make it more about... I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't love you. Or at least I wouldn't say that I did, I guess, in that universe. about the complication in your personal feelings rather than trying to make it sound like it's this logical thing of if it means different things to different people, it doesn't mean anything.

Because that would be true of all words. Okay, but Finn's not the one who wrote in. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Love Ball is who we're talking to here. Yeah, so I'm going to talk to Love Ball. I think that if I was in Love Ball's position, I might... sit down, do some reflection either on my own or maybe with a therapist or with a friend that I trust.

And I might chew on the question, if my partner said I love you to me, what would that mean to me? How would that make me feel? How would I interpret? Right. And maybe it is like I would feel safe. Maybe it's I would feel romantic. Maybe it's I would feel really deeply connected. I would feel more secure or I would know that this partner is going to. care for me even if I get sick or injured, like whatever it does mean to you.

being able to get that relatively clear. And then that's the beginning of a conversation with your partner around, hey, like these are the things that I'm longing to feel or these are things that I'm looking to you for. And then it's a prompt for the two of you to be creative around

Because it sounds like for this person, there's the verbal aspect that is very important, right? Even though their partner, it seems like they're trying to show up in all these other ways with acts of service and gifts and things like that. that then, I don't know, it could be a microscript. It could be some kind of unique language that you come up with as a shorthand, right? To just be like, fine, we don't have to use the word love.

But like when I'm looking to you and I want to hear you say something to me that conveys the way that you feel about me, let's come up with something that makes sense there. And it can be silly, it can be playful, you can make up your own language, it can be an in-joke.

But I think that's where I would coach people towards is like use it as an opportunity to be generative together rather than just like trying to pull on your partner to get him to say a specific word he doesn't want to say. Right.

Yeah, no, that's great. I read the book recently. I think I talked about it on a show that we did within the last few months, but the bell hooks book called All About Love. Classic. Yeah, it's great, and it's a fascinating kind of musing on all of the different ways in which we do love, and it includes community, it includes familial love, as well as romantic love. And it did sort of get me thinking about this in a different way than I have in the past.

And trying to see love as less of a transactional thing and more something that you do to someone else and for someone else. in the expressions of how you are trying to help them become the best version of themselves that they can be. and their spiritual calling kind of thing. That's sort of the conclusion that she comes to is that love means like helping a person create the highest version of self.

and that that is the ultimate act of love. And that doesn't necessarily include them doing the same thing for you. Ideally, that is the case that you are doing that mutually, but sometimes that may not be the case there. I don't know. I guess it's a question of what is this person giving you that allows you to feel your version of love that you want.

and that you think is fulfilling to you? And are you both able to come to an agreement space where you're able to do that for one another? Even if you're not saying the same words, but the act of it is creating the type of relationship that you ultimately want. The thing that I wanted to come back around to after my rant about love and words meaning things was that when I think about saying I love you, like when I think about talking to Dediker,

Like, I'll say I love you, and we say that often. But it does feel like it's a little bit of this light, easy to say, doesn't have a ton of meaning. Like, yes, it's meaningful that we say that, but it's not like, if I really want to convey...

how much I care about her, saying I love you is actually not my go-to. Maybe that'll get thrown in there, but it's usually being more specific of saying something like, I love that you're someone I can come to every day and I love how your brain works or, you know, maybe I use the word love in it, but it's, something more specific, a little deeper than that. And I wonder if there might be something there for the two of you as well. That's nice.

to look at, like, what are the things that can be said to convey that depth and that intensity or that long-lasting, stableness feeling? Like, looking for ways to say that. Maybe even... that involves the word love, but not in that general sense of I love you, which is kind of, again, it's hard to say what does that really mean. It can mean a lot of different things to people. versus

There's something specifically, I love that we have this connection. I love that we connect in this way. I love that I can be so happy for your successes. You know, whatever it is, like looking for those more specific things, maybe could be another option for a middle ground. Or maybe he would feel more comfortable saying love when it's more specific around it. I like that.

Yeah, that's great. And the last thing that I'll say is I'm currently in a relationship with somebody who's never actually said it to a partner. and it has caused me to, even though I have felt these urges and moments of yeah I really feel this thing and I want to say it it has caused me to really contemplate like the meaning of love and what it is and questioning even my actions in the past of doing it so quickly and saying it so quickly.

And even using that metric dedicar of going through like challenges or trying time or not seeing the person at their best or them seeing me at my best and then coming out on the other side and being like, yeah. We got through that and it was okay and I wasn't appalled by your actions or whatever. It's interesting. It is, I agree, a nice way in which...

to look at what does this word mean and how can I express it without saying that word specifically to someone. And it's been nice. So I hope that... You can find that as well and that it doesn't need to necessarily convey absolutely everything. And that's the only metric of like whether or not somebody cares for you because clearly they're expressing it in a variety of ways.

Thank you so much for your question, Loveball from Montreal. We really appreciate you sharing with us and hope that some of this was helpful for you. We're going to take a quick break before our next question to talk about some sponsors of this show. It really does help us out a lot if you take a moment to listen to them. And if any seem interesting to you, use our links, promo codes. Those should all be in the episode description as well.

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And now it's time for question number two. This one's a little bit long, but I think there's some great context here for the discussion, so I'm just gonna read the whole thing here. How do I honor my polyamorous identity when I am, for the foreseeable future, committed to a monogamous relationship?

Hi folks, I'm a 32-year-old queer woman. I grew up in a sheltered, puritanical environment where only straight, cisgendered, monogamous relationships were entertained. Sexual identity exploration outside of that was unheard of. I was able to survive that environment and come out as queer in young adulthood, and before I was able to explore my sexuality any further,

I met and entered into a monogamous relationship with my current-day wife, who I'll call Hillary. We are still in love 11 years later and have three amazing kids together. Hillary and I started experimenting with ethical non-monogamy about a year and a half ago. It opened me up to so many wonderful emotions, experiences, and ideas. It felt like home. However, it was nothing of the sort for Hillary. She found it unexciting and painful. All cons and no pros.

We closed back up after four months and started couples counseling. I've experienced a lot of distress in closing up, and I finally realized that a contributing factor to my distress is that I identify as polyamorous. This past year has felt akin to being in the closet like I was in my teens and early 20s, a miserable place marked by inauthenticity and shame.

So, I've decided that, even though I'm committed to Hillary, and we accept that we may open up one day in the future, but we also may not, I need to come out as polyamorous. I have lived in a closet before and I refuse to do it again. Hillary understands and is comfortable with my choice to do this. So now here's the core of the question. So far, I've come out to my sister and a close friend. I've subscribed to Multiamory and joined the Discord community.

What are other non-sexual, non-romantic ways to express and honor the polyamorous part of my identity? And, if I may be allowed a follow-up, how do I shed the discomfort of explaining that I identify as polyamorous, but am not actively looking for romantic connection? And this is from Anticlimactic coming out.

There's a lot in this. I think it is a really interesting question. And I just want to say, too anticlimactic coming out, the question asker. that I think it's great that you're able to do some of this introspection and try to figure out what exactly it is that felt uncomfortable for you in closing that back up. I think there's still room to explore that as well and keep evaluating that for yourself. Keep those conversations going.

For people, this kind of realization is something that can take a lot of time and your lives can go through many chapters, but only if you're actively continuing to have those conversations and doing it. But to come back to the core of what you're getting at here, I think that I can relate to a certain extent. It's not the same, but I can relate in that I have not really...

dated very much in the last several years. In fact, for the most part, was effectively monogamous with Dedeker from the end of 2019. through maybe the last year or so. And we've talked about this before. There is a little bit of that weird feeling of, well, am I actually being polyamorous right now? Am I polyamorous enough?

But for me, it was that it aligns with my beliefs and how I feel about relationships and how I feel about people. And so for me, there wasn't ever this question of, am I polyamorous? In the same way that if a person were straight, or gay and not dating anyone most people wouldn't question that like oh well are you really straight though if you're not dating anyone

Or are you actually gay if you're not dating anyone? Like, that's a weird question to ask. And so I think that there is this difference between an identity that helps to state what your feelings are as well as what your beliefs are. is different from the actions of doing that thing. In the same way that bisexual people can be married monogamously to one person, but still they are bisexual, even if they're only with one person who has just one gender.

So I guess I would say you're on the right track of just saying, yes, you can be this thing. And also just realizing there isn't really anybody that you have to convince of this besides yourself.

I do think right now can be a really beneficial and awesome exploratory phase, even if it's going on just internally. And what I mean by that is writing down what it would look like if you had an ideal scenario where you were non-monogamous specifically with a partner, with multiple partners, with your wife. what that would look like what your ideal non-monogamy looks like and i think getting clear about that can at least

feel as though you are moving in a direction of maybe someday this can be a thing that we can open up to. And I do think that if you feel comfortable sharing that, with your partner as well, that would be really lovely and something to discuss and something to be honest about. And I don't know if they would be open to the possibility of things like play parties or doing something like that together.

Again, it's challenging because I felt like I was in this position to a degree with Jace like really early on where I didn't really... get it, and I didn't really know how to be polyamorous until I found... You didn't have a very good time at first, too. Exactly. It just happened that way. That's what I mean. I didn't have a great time until...

I started dating people that I was really excited about and then all of a sudden it got flipped on its head. I will say that's not the case for everyone. I do think that absolutely there are people out there who are just never going to particularly feel good about non-monogamy. And that's hard. It's hard to have that difference, especially with somebody that you care so much about and that you have three kids with. That's really, really difficult. And I think...

It's a question of, is there ever room for a monogamous slash polyamory situation, monopoly, what exactly can we do here to keep the relationship alive and yet still be able to explore the part of yourself that is clearly meaningful to you.

Something that I actually think makes this whole scenario easier is the fact that the question asker I get the sense they've really planted their flag in the sense they've really owned their choices here that like they own the choice that they chose to enter into a monogamous relationship and that they love their wife they're owning the choice that they you know chose with their wife to explore non-monogamy that they chose to to close things up that

They realized, like, even though I'm choosing to be in a monogamous relationship, I need to be open about my identity and really owning the fact that, yeah, we made this choice together and our relationship may change in the future or it may not. And the reason why I think that really helps is like I work with, I've worked with many people in this scenario where they're really wondering, well, really how important is non-monogamy to me?

Is it so intrinsic to who I am that it's worth it to walk away from a very long established co-parenting relationship. Or is it not worth it? And that's a really hard question to answer, and it's very dependent on everybody's. personal situation but i don't know i just get the sense from the question that the asker is comfortable with with the choices that they've made so far and i think that makes things a lot

easier. And particularly, I think it makes things a lot easier around navigating the feelings that may come up around this. So they mention that This brings up very similar feelings as when they were in their teens and their early 20s. This idea, I'm being inauthentic, this is shameful, like I'm... stifling some piece of my identity. And in the therapeutic modality that I work in, which is somatic experiencing, there's this term known as overcoupling.

Other therapeutic modalities use different terms, but I'm just going to use overcoupling because that's the one I know. And overcoupling is this phenomenon when something from your present life rhymes just enough with something traumatic.

from your past that you know on one end of the extreme it could be a full-on ptsd trigger and then on the lower end of the extreme it could just be like it brings up these feelings of discomfort because it brings me back to that time And looking at the emotional experience here, I think it's really, really important to kind of decouple these two experiences.

And the way that you do that is really leaning into the ways that the present is different from your experience in the past. This is all a gross generalization, but... For instance, I'm looking at the fact that as an adult you got to make this choice to close your relationship up.

That's not a choice you got to make when you were a teen where all of this was imposed upon you. That, like, you're going to be cisgender, you're going to be monogamous, you're going to be straight, and that's... the only option in the present as an adult you get to be collaborative with your partner you get to be collaborative with your therapist right like there's empowerment which I'm guessing did not exist when this person was in their teens, when they were a young person.

In the present, there gets to be breathing room around this person's identity. Like, they have the opportunity to be able to come out to people who are close to them in a way that they probably didn't get when they were young. And also this idea that there is a future here that is not necessarily static and stuck around their identity and how they practice their identity versus in the past.

Again, I'm guessing, and this is a little bit pulled on my own experience growing up in a very sheltered, you know, puritanical environment where things are a lot more stuck and static and you don't have a lot of power there. So I don't know. I just wanted to highlight that, that I think that's going to help in this scenario where you're not sure what the future is going to hold. But if you're able to at least have more resources and like more kindness,

for yourself to be able to shift that emotional pattern that's coming up i think that that can help because who knows like maybe you don't try opening up again for another decade or whatever maybe that's maybe a decade from now is going to be the right time to try something or maybe not Yeah, and ideally, it sounds as though you have somebody in your life who's very caring and loving and wants the best for you, even if this identity is not necessarily something that they also identify with.

But that collaboration, like Dedeker said, And I think the exploring of what I was talking about, like really figuring out, okay, is this an identity that means I will not be happy as a person unless I get to do this thing. or is it a part of me that's really meaningful and present but I would be willing to still stay in the relationship type that I'm currently in, even if it means that I'm never going to be able to do that.

so it's tough i mean i feel like i had to make this decision too and it didn't work out as well for me but i also had a partner who wasn't maybe as as kind about me even questioning that part of my identity and questioning the opportunity to be around other people in a sexual and romantic way, even that questioning became a thing that was weaponized against me. I'm hoping very much that that is not the case for you.

And that's another thing I think to look out for. There are ways in which we can be understanding of one another. And also be reassuring that just because I am interested in this, it doesn't mean that I want to leave you or not want to be with you. But I also want you to acknowledge this part of myself. because it is important to me.

With the pairing of questions at the end, you know, they ask what are other non-sexual and non-romantic ways to express and honor the polyamorous part of my identity and How do I shed the discomfort of explaining that I identify as poly, but I'm not actively looking for romantic connections? I wondered about... going to a community meetup of some kind, like a poly or an E&M community meetup.

I could see one version of that where like even being able to connect with other non-monogamous people could be really life fulfilling and it could be a space where you feel like you don't have to mask your identity as much and you can be really honest about your journey and your feelings and things like that.

As far as the discomfort piece, I'm actually willing to bet you'd probably meet a lot of people who are in a similar boat as you, because if there's anything I've learned at this point, there's a lot of non-monogamous people out there who worry that they're not poly enough because X, Y, Z. You know, because I'm not seeking romantic partners or I can't find romantic partners or whatever it is. So there's that piece.

I could also see a version of going to a community meetup actually making things harder and more difficult if it creates this sense of longing or... envy or something that makes it much harder for you to be present in it with your committed partner right now working through this. So I think that'd be something for the question asker to feel out on their own.

Yeah, if I can come back to those last couple of questions there as well. I think that something we've talked about for a long time on this show, even from like the way, way early days, something I think Emily's expressed particularly is this sense that When you're in relationships with different people, it brings out other sides of you that you can sometimes kind of end up, you know, fitting yourself to fit the one person that you're with and being with others broadens that out.

And that is not something that is exclusive to romantic or sexual relationships. That also just happens from finding ways to prioritize other types of friendships or... disentangling the relationship between the two of you a little bit. I don't mean like moving out or separating finances necessarily, but just

Making sure that you're also both spending your own time on your own interests, you know, giving each other the gift of I'm going to watch the kids. Tonight you go out and do something with your friends and kind of doing trades like that. to just get that sense of having that little bit more distance and more of this sense of your own identity outside of each other, which then also can add to that attraction and excitement that you feel when being with each other.

To go back to what I was mentioning earlier about feeling like, you know, I really hardly dated at all in the past several years now. During that time, though, I've also been prioritizing just maintaining my friendships and really proactively caring about those instead of those just getting left over time after dating.

I've been doing that a lot recently, and that's felt really fulfilling and just, I don't know, life affirming and uplifting for me, and I've really been enjoying that. And that's absolutely something you could do that doesn't. have anything to do with romance or sex. Yeah, that reminds me of Raina Cohen's The Other Significant Others, and you can go back and listen to our episode with Raina, because in that book...

She talks about these platonic relationships that do become family and do become extremely important, sometimes the most important relationships in a person's life, even if they don't involve sex or romance. And I do think that, yeah, exactly like Jace said, you can have a variety of fulfilling relationships in your life that often sort of the dyadic...

I'm only with this one person dynamic tends to mean that you don't necessarily nurture those types of relationships as much as you maybe did when you were younger. So I agree with Jace. I encourage you to find those relationships, seek them out, and nurture them as much as you can, especially if... that's the type of maybe non-monogamy that you're doing and even people in that book would talk about their platonic relationships as

I'm maybe even non-monogamous because those relationships mean as much and are as important to me as the romantic relationships in my life, even if they don't involve sex or romance. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Anticlimactic, coming out for writing in and sharing. We'll be excited to hear how that goes, and it's awesome that you're in the Discord community. Hopefully you can share there as well.

We're going to take another quick break before we go on to our final question for today to talk about some sponsors of this show. We appreciate these sponsors for being willing to support our show, and we would love it if you took just a moment to listen to those ads. If they seem interesting to you, use our promo codes and our links. Those are in our episode show description. And then, of course, you can join our community directly on a sliding scale by going to multiamory.com slash join.

and joining our amazing Discord community, just like this last question asker has done.

And here's our last question for today. How do you help friends and family understand that polyamory isn't just about sex? I'm new to polyamory, and when I talk to friends and family, I feel some of them think it is just about sex and is unethical, particularly those who are religious. I want them to understand that I'm making strong, meaningful connections and that sex is just one part of that, much like their monogamous relationship.

Even so, what's wrong with enjoying consensual sex with multiple people? That is from out and proud, but misunderstood. I'm going to jump right in to say that to be out and proud is to be misunderstood. Wow. Put that on a cross-stitch right there. It's quite a profound statement. I love that. Beautiful. Yeah, I mean, you said it right here, like, very eloquently and beautifully that it is

about making strong, meaningful connections. Sex is just one part of it, but also what's wrong with enjoying consensual sex with multiple people. And I get that that's probably really difficult for some people to understand, especially if they are religious. But I would encourage meaningful discussion over something like this. What is actually wrong with enjoying consensual sex with multiple people? Because I would be fascinated to get into a conversation with someone about that.

try to go through the points that you're trying to make and then also say yes i get to do that i get to have a great time enjoying those things maybe it's a one-off maybe it's a fun evening of like being at a play party or whatever But then I also am building these strong connections that include sex, but they also include friendship, love, care, commitment. all of those things that you might do with friends, but I'm also just getting to enjoy those elements as well.

See, I completely disagree with that. I also completely disagree. Yeah. Oh God, you're sorry. Well, okay. Sorry. I'll walk it out. I don't, I don't 100% disagree. I only 50% disagree. And. I think you need to choose your battles and choose who you have those conversations with because not everybody is ready to have that conversation in a way that's going to be a good faith.

conversation where they're going to ask questions that are genuinely driven by curiosity and not by just like trying to judge you or criticize you in some way. i don't know here's my deal i've been on this podcast for like 10 years and my day job is also working with clients where like i talk about non-monogamy and all this stuff day in and day out and so then like when i go see my family i do not have the energy to have these conversations.

I think the difference is that the two of you may have actual like religious people in your life far more than I do. That's a good point. And so my head just immediately goes to, yeah, I can have conversations like this with people in my life. because I generally can and I don't have to worry about that element.

the same way that perhaps the two of you might so I'm coming from my lens you're coming from yours and so yeah no I don't think that this would be that difficult to discuss and I've had great conversations with people about just this But I do agree with you that, yeah, I wouldn't have it with just anyone. Yeah, I think where I wanted to bring this is, and I think you've hit on it exactly, that it depends what the context is and who you're talking to.

And so to that, I would split apart these two questions. Because on the one hand, there's the first question of, how do I convey to people that polyamory is not just about sex, that this isn't just a sex thing? And then secondarily, there's this other question of what's wrong with enjoying consensual sex with multiple people.

And I think that this is the unfortunate part about having any kind of marginalized or non-mainstream identity or practice is that you have to do the extra mental work of evaluating when is appropriate to have which conversation.

And I think that over time you'll get better at that, but there's always this little bit of extra mental load that you take on if you want to try to have these conversations effectively. So in that situation, there is the person where... I find this most often for myself with

a relative who I know is religious and who's older than me. Those two factors together means I'm going to go with the first option of emphasizing the fact that these are long-term committed relationships. I'm going to downplay any kind of sex. Talk about it probably not at all, except in denying that that's all that it's about. because to that audience, that

already asking them to do a little bit of mental stretching. And I kind of want them to understand me. I want them to respect what I'm doing as much as I can, get them to do that. But to try to convince them that consensual sex with multiple people is okay is never going to happen. It's just not going to happen. I can't have that real conversation and expect to get results. versus someone maybe like Again, I'm at a family gathering and I'm privately having a conversation with my cousins.

who are monogamous, not as religious, maybe they're closer to my age or younger than me, then maybe, like Emily said, we could have that conversation of well, what exactly do you think is wrong about that? And have that kind of fun, interesting conversation where we all kind of get to question why we believe the things that we do. So I guess that's where I would come from is be sure not to start talking about...

the it isn't all about sex thing, and then mid-argument switch to the why isn't it just okay for us all to enjoy that because you'll totally undermine all the work that you might have done in that first part of convincing them it's not all about sex, if that makes sense. I just don't know that you necessarily need to have the goal of trying to convince anyone of anything. To me, like, these conversations are not about convincing because I think that

So often they end in, oh wow, like that sounds pretty amazing, but I could never do that. And there are some people who just truly could never do that or who don't want to stretch themselves further than what they know and what they're comfortable with. But I think it's not a bad thing to ask somebody to think outside the box, think outside of the confines of what they were taught and what they were asked to do while growing up.

and just the things that are prescribed to most of us from our family of origin and the way in which we think that relationships should go or that we are taught that relationships should go in terms of one trajectory and that's it. And I do think that it's important to have these conversations with some people, but not necessarily with the goal of saying, oh, and we're doing this because I want to convince you of X, Y, or Z thing.

I feel like when it comes to the first part of the question, though, because they're saying, you know, when I talk to my friends and family, which to me means people that I care about and whose opinions and feelings I care about because they're my friends or they're my family. And that some of them get uncomfortable and think it's just about sex and that it's unethical.

And I want them to understand. They're even saying here, like, I want to change their understanding. So I'm not saying convince them to change their belief, but get them to change how they think of you and what you're doing. I think that that is... We do that all the time, right? Anytime we clarify anything or anytime we explain things or even using labels is to try to get people to understand us better.

So yeah, maybe I should have rephrased, it's not about changing their mind about a belief, but changing their mind about their assumptions that they've made about you based on basically nothing that they know coming in. Right. This kind of total lack of actual information and context. Yeah. I wanted to point out this person mentions that they're also new to polyamory. And so not only does it sound like the friends and family are coming in with nothing.

But also, like, they don't have any data accumulated of what it's like to be in relationship with you as you're practicing polyamory. Now, what I mean by that is when I was relatively new, newly out, let's say, like within a year or so of being out specifically to my mom, who is religious.

When I went through a breakup in that first year, she was extremely negative about non-monogamy, as you might expect, right? That like when I went through a very upsetting breakup, she was pinning a lot of it on polyamory, that that was the reason why that all of this was falling apart. which of course just added to my upset at the time. But fast forward several years later, like a couple of years ago when I had a different breakup with a different partner.

where I found I was actually able to open up to her, to be honest with her, to express like my pain and my feelings and stuff like that. And she was able to just be with me in that she didn't mention anything about polyamory being the problem like she was able to actually just talk to me about the relationship and comfort me and you know witness my pain and stuff like that and

I don't know if that's just chalking up to people shifting over time, but I think it's more about there were many more years that she saw me just being a functioning adult while also happening to be polyamorous.

my life for the most part like I was doing the things that I wanted to do in life and like keeping myself busy and staying i don't know like able to take care of myself and stuff like that and also having healthy relationships in addition to you know some relationships ending or not working out and we didn't have like 25 different conversations where i had to convince her It was much more of this slow process of her seeing me just living my life.

i don't know if that's in the cards for your friends and family that's going to be on a person-by-person basis but i do think that's part of it that sometimes it may not be in about the active convincing and more about you just Making an effort to live your best life possible in the way you want to live it. Showing them over time. I remember Emily and I talked about that a lot back when we were first opening it.

Oh yeah, I agree with you completely. And also, you're gonna learn so much about yourself through this process as well. and about what non-monogamy means to you what polyamory even is in the context of your life where it's going to fit in how many people you're going to date and then you know all of the trials and tribulations that come with that and all of the joys as well And I do agree that...

time is the thing that will cause people to realize this isn't something that's just a phase this is something that actually is meaningful and matters to you and hopefully if they love you and care about you they'll see that it something that is here to stay and therefore they should be interested in it and want to explore what it means to you and you know what it is in your life that causes you to want to do that. and want to make this relationship change. Yeah, I think definitely.

showing the stability of it over time is a big part. And then also sharing just enough to let people understand that these are meaningful relationships without oversharing in the effort to convince them because it might actually backfire a little bit where they're like, whoa, this person just really needs to talk about this all the time. And especially when you're just starting out, you do feel like you need to talk about it all the time. So I can relate to that as well.

One last thing is that we have an episode that we did, gosh, I guess a couple years ago now, called The Episode to Share with Your Parent. This is episode 432, and it's also available on YouTube as a video version if that's easier to share with people who are not active podcast listeners already. This one is

specifically made with that in mind, of just dispelling myths. This is not just for the random person, but this is the parents or the family members who care enough to be willing to take 45 minutes to an hour to learn about what it is that you're doing and so i definitely recommend that and i actually just found out this last week that a friend of mine who occasionally listens to the show has just started the process of coming out to his family

And he told me, he's like, I shared with them that episode, you know, the one for the parents. I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. That's so great. And he said that his coming out to them has gone much better than he expected, actually. So that's been going quite well.

But anyway, so the episode to share with your parents, 432, definitely worth checking out as well. And thank you, out and proud, but misunderstood. Put that on a cross stitch. Thank you so much for writing in. We appreciate you sharing this part of your journey with us. And we look forward to hearing updates on how that goes.

And thank you to all of our question askers. If you would like to ask a question, be sure that you join our Discord or our Facebook group. You can go to multiemory.com slash join to join those, and we'll put out calls for questions occasionally. Or you can go to multiamory.com slash questions and submit your question there to see if we'll pick it for a future episode.

Our question of the week this week for all of you on our Instagram stories is, How do you know it's the right time to say, I love you? We're really curious to hear... what other people do to know it's the right time. How do you make that decision? What obstacles do you put in your death-defying gauntlet? Right, exactly. Because I need some ideas to freshen it up. Your will chooses me, your heart chooses her.

So how do you know it's the right time to say I love you? That's our question on Instagram at multiamory underscore podcast. You can answer that there. The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel on our Discord server or you can post in our private Facebook group. You can get access to both of these groups and join our amazing community by going to multiamory.com. join. And of course, you can share publicly on Instagram as well.

Multi-Amory is created and produced by Emily Matlack, Dedeker Winston, and me, Jace Lindgren. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.