Stop Romanticizing NRE

As all three readers of this blog know, we here at SoT take a pretty cautious view of what polyamorists refer to as “New Relationship Energy” (NRE), otherwise known as “limerance” in the psychology world and “infatuation” to the rest of us.  We’re certainly written about it enough, and it was clear that in our situation, it was something we were hoping to avoid.

Whoops.  

I’m seeing someone, and yes, fairly extreme limerance on my part is involved.  And it’s just the worst.  I don’t feel in control of my thoughts, I’m constantly distracted, and the extreme highs and lows are exhausting. Even if logically, I understand that I am having irrational thoughts, that doesn’t stop me from experiencing the emotions that said cognitions lead to me to.  Here’s a brief guide to where my head’s been out in the last three weeks:

-Not receiving an email within the space of a day or sometimes even hours?  He’s obviously lost all interest in me.

-Sends me a nice email?  Walkin’ on air for hours.

-I am probably the worst wife ever, I should probably cry about the guilt a lot

-Then I should spend hours asking my husband to analyze what’s going on and tell me that my limerance object is totally into me/not into me at all

-We should probably go to Berlin together as soon as possible even though I have no idea if we share the same travel interests and have had only one overnight to date

-Thinking it’s a good idea to force a “where are we at” conversation way too early into it and freak out and say we shouldn’t see each other anymore before giving him time to respond appropriately

-Time to over-analyze everything he says for signs that he’s totes into me/totes not into me

-Making like 5 mixtapes for him that I will certainly never send

-This is the best/worst thing I have experienced in a while.  Whether it’s the best or the worst thing can change within the space of 5 minutes, for no particular reason.

To make myself feel better, I started doing some research on this state and what I found was not very encouraging.

Psychologists define limerance is defined as “an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated.”  Experts believe it is biochemical in nature, functioning similarly to the way obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction in the brain.  When you read through the symptoms of being in a limerant state, it’s clear to see how irrational, and, well, silly it is.  But remember that involuntary part?  Yeah.  You can’t control your thoughts.

There is a semantics issue here as well.  Polyamorist author Franklin Veaux claims limerance and NRE are actually different things - NRE being just positive, of course, and limerance being a little more of a grey area.  Even some limerance experts make a distinction between being limerant and “true romantic love”.  Frankly, I’m not sure I’m buying it.  Taking the same chemical reaction and splitting hairs to validate a positive outcome of limerance doesn’t help us rationally evaluate the state for what it is.

In a situation where you’re genuinely compatible with the object of your limerance and your feelings are reciprocated, it runs concurrently with the beginning of the falling-in-love process.  Eventually romantic love develops, and that grows stronger as the limerance fades over the months.  Then, in theory, you wind up in a healthy relationship.  That’s certainly been the case for my own marriage.

But even that happy ending doesn’t negate the fact that limerance is irrational and blinds you to reality.  I’m lucky that I experienced limerance for someone who was so perfect for me, but I’ve also experienced it for people who most certainly were not, which lead to getting into relationships that were very unhealthy.  Had I not been blinded initially by limerance, I would’ve been able to perceive that person wasn’t a good partner for me much earlier than I did.

Of course, that sounds like I’m shirking responsibility for bad decision-making, but I’m not.  I’m older and wiser now, and most importantly, aware of what limerance is and how it functions.  And I know I can control my actions, even if in a limerant state I feel almost completely unable to control my obsessive thoughts.  I can logically tell myself that you cannot fall in love in a matter of weeks, or even a few months, because you cannot know someone well enough to truly love them in such a short amount of time..  I can remind myself of what real romantic love feels like and understand that just because my body is telling me one thing my head knows better.  

What worries me is the celebration of this state in polyamorous culture, however.  For starters, limerance is inherently selfish.  It is not unconditional love or genuine regard for another person, although it’s easy to lie to yourself and say that it is.  The state is best evoked by the poets of the band “Cheap Trick” in their classic song “I You To Want Me.”  Note how many times the words “I” and “me” are used in that song.  

Limerance desires reciprocation above all else.  It’s ego-driven, and the opposite of selfless love.  This excellent blog post explains specifically the selfishness of an infatuated person. And yet polyamorist writers say things like “NRE is transcendent,” and “New relationship energy should always be celebrated,” and then avoid addressing the topic in too much detail.  Everyone’s favorite poly book of the moment, “More Than Two” is over 700 pages long, yet spends exactly two pages discussing NRE, and is largely very positive about it, just adding a few cautionary notes to not neglect your existing relationships while experiencing it.  That seems insufficient, given the degree to which NRE both creates and sometimes destroys relationships.

I’m not trying to say that limerance is bad, though.  It just is, and for most people, there’s no avoiding it unless you avoid other human beings.  What is bad is taking this involuntary, obsessive, crazy-making state and confusing it with love, or even with the beginning of love.  Just because limerance is something most people experience as they’re falling in love does not mean that limerance itself is the process of falling in love.  Limerance is chemicals in your brain trying to get you to make babies with another person, basically (no surprise so many safer-sex slip-ups also happen when in the throes of NRE).

It’s often referred to as a drug-like state, and I think we can take that metaphor further.  People can experience great, wonderful feelings while on drugs, and have insights that seem well, transcendent at the time.  (Oh hello, ecstasy!)  But those feelings and realizations are inorganic, they are literally being created by altered brain chemistry.  However, if an insight can actually be taken from that experience and applied fully to your life when you’re sober, that’s great.  But that didn’t come from the drug, that came from you.  When you’re on the drug, you’re not able to distinguish what is real that you’re feeling and what isn’t.  Or you can even have realizations that may be true but simply cannot be applied to your life while sober.  (Which reminds me of the time I decided there was no reason I should ever have to feel physical pain, because it’s simply an electric current being transmitted by nerves that our brains then interpret as an unpleasant sensation.  But with enough brain control you could interpret that signal as neutral.  Great idea!  Except it’s impossible, whoops.)  My point being that you can be limerant and actually falling in love with someone, but because your brain is “high” it’s impossible to tell in the moment whether you are or not.  You just have to wait until you’re “sober” to figure it out because being in limerance is literally an altered state.

The only way to experience this state without neglecting your life, work, hobbies, friends, and most importantly, your existing relationships is to be extremely aware of the irrationality of it - and then do your best to behave as if you are not experiencing it as much as you can (which will probably mean you’re only talking about your limerance object way too much, as opposed to the way way way way WAY too much you would be if you weren’t being self-conscious about it.)

So I’m against romanticizing NRE or at this point, even calling it NRE.  Referring to it as energy that comes from a relationship elevates the crazy to the same level as a love relationship, which it clearly is not.  It’s fine to enjoy it or rather, not enjoy it if you’re a control freak like me, but don’t call it something it’s not.

NRE Isn't Why We Fall In Love, But It Might Be Why We Break Up

For years, my biggest issue with polyamory, or more specifically, poly advice, was that the incredibly destructive, relationship-ending chemical rodeo known as “New Relationship Energy” (also known as “infatuation” if you’re level-headed, “limerence” if you’re a psychologist, or “love” if you’re an idiot) was downplayed consistently.  Many poly problems seemed to stem from bad choices or inconsiderate behavior made by one partner in NRE, while the other partner has to deal with the insecurity and jealousy of seeing their SO acting like a crazy person and showing little interest in them.  Feeling like you’re losing your partner to another is the primal fear that prevents many people from exploring poly and haunts many who do.  When you have a partner in full-on NRE, many of those fears seem to be coming true - because, maybe, they are!

For years, most people have viewed NRE, or whatever you want to call it, as crazy chemical drug that induces people to begin relationships for the sake of makin’ babies.  However, an article on The Quartz brings up the idea that maybe the point of NRE isn’t so much to get into new relationships, but rather to get out of an existing one.

It sounds crazy, but it also makes sense.  You don’t need NRE to start a relationship - it helps, but many solid relationships exist without NRE having ever been in play.  And certainly many relationships end without NRE for another factoring in.  But when one person leaves someone for another?  NRE is always in the mix.

The age old question in sexuality and relationship research was whether humans are fundamentally monogamous or not.  There are extremists on both sides arguing their case furiously, but reality seems to be more complicated.  A lot of evidence is starting to point towards the fact that when the status of the sexes are relatively equal, serial monogamy will be the norm.  This article argues that may be the way nature intended it to be.

I’m wary of the naturalistic fallacy no matter who it’s coming from - Conservatives on one side, Christopher Ryan of “Sex at Dawn” on the other.  From a common sense perspective though, ending an otherwise happy, stable relationship does seem strange, until you consider the idea that NRE might exist to encourage us to do just that.  

If there’s some truth to this hypothesis, it might help explain why poly relationships do seem, on the whole, more unstable than monogamous ones.  I know this will get the poly readers I don’t have huffy, but as much as we all love to hate him (and we do kinda hate him on this blog), Dan Savage famously remarked that he’s been to plenty of poly commitment ceremonies, but not a whole lot of poly three-year anniversary parties.  He has a point, and the point isn’t that polyamory is bad or invalid, but it is an inherently destabilizing relationship model.  Shira B. Katz, formerly of Pedestrian Polyamory (which ended when her marriage ended due to...NRE) and currently of Life On The Swingset and an enthusiastic and proud poly person has advocated that line many times as a positive, as does Franklin Veaux.  Two people who are famous poly experts who don’t put a lot of value in established relationships.  It’s not hard to find monogamous or “ish” people who have been together for 10 years.  It is quite difficult to find poly people who have maintained more than one relationship for 10 years.  (And when you do, it’s often a closed triad or V, which for some reason seems to be a more stable structure than others.)

These musings only matter if relationship stability is your primary goal when navigating an open relationship.  It isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine.  Many polyamorous folk look down on those of us who value that stability as engaging in “couple supremacy” and I say, hey, we are all free to choose what’s most important to us in life.  My current relationship is the most important thing to me outside of my basic personhood.  I know I could survive and thrive without my husband, but I just don’t want to, not if it could be helped.  We know, being in an open relationship, that NRE is possible.  Hell, I found myself in crazy, one-sided NRE with a friend that I simply had a crush on.  Despite my deep commitment to my husband, and the fact that I did not find this guy a good match in any other sense, I found myself indulging in fantasies of running away with my crush object.  It’s crazy, it defies reason, or even what I really want in my life, but that’s NRE for you.  It’s not logical.  And like all NRE, it passed, I’m really, honestly glad that he never made a pass at me, and I kept my feelings hidden from him.   It would have been incredibly destructive to the thing I hold most dear, and for what?  Indulging in a temporary chemical high with someone that I’m fundamentally incompatible with in a way that could have very likely harmed the relationship I care the most about?

I’m not saying that being poly is inherently bad, but I am saying it’s inherently destabilizing.   If maintaining an existing relationship is a primary goal of yours, opening yourself up to the possibility with NRE is risky, no matter what poly advice gurus will tell you.  It’s up to you to negotiate responsibly the line between risk and reward.  Tread carefully.

30 Day Sex Challenge!

So becoming casual Redditors has obviously got the boy and I thinking a lot more about sexual culture and sex in general, probably because we tend to lurk in forums related to sex, like /r/polyamory, /r/DeadBedrooms, /r/nofap, even /r/adultery.  They're all fascinating.  DeadBedrooms in particular - a subreddit for support and advice when one person wants a lot more sex than their partner.

I actually ended up finding Dead Bedrooms (DB) a few months ago, when we were going through a bit of a slowdown in our sex life.  When we got together, nearly 9 years ago, our relationship was focused on sex from the beginning.  The boy was actively trying to sleep with 50 girls in a year (we met in January - he didn't get too far into that experiment) and I was just out of a 6 year long monogamous relationship.  From our second date, when we fucked for the first time, it was clear we had incredible sexual chemistry.  The fact that he has an over 8-inch dick didn't hurt, either.  We eventually fell in love with each other for reasons beyond sex, but our salacious beginnings meant that for us, even a relatively moderate drop in libido from either one of us can cause panic.

Of course, in a long term relationship, sex is not going to be as frequently desired as it was when you first got together.  We both occasionally found ourselves going through periods where we were desiring sex significantly less and with the exception of when we were living apart so the boy could finish his degree, he's also had a very punishing work schedule for the entire time we've been together, with him alternating between 12 hour day and night shifts every few weeks.  Not ideal.  We've also grown older together, which can obviously dampen libido to some degree.  At times the boy's chronic pain condition has made things difficult, and I have minor health issues that can make sex off-putting as well.

That said, things never got that dire, at least, not compared to anyone who posts in DB.  We consider going a week without sex to indicate a major problem, and we've rarely gone longer than that for any reason other than physical separation - like when I was in California for a month last year.  But when I found DB, we weren't having sex more than twice a week, sometimes less, and I wasn't feeling desired or like the boy was putting a lot of effort in.  I even wrote a post I intended to publish there, but deleted it instead.  The next day things turned around and our sex life has improved majorly in the months since then.

We started averaging 3-5 times a week, which is about as much as we tend to crave under normal circumstances.  We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, but I think there's always room for improvement, and there's always time for SCIENCE!  So I suggested that we do something we'd talked about before - have sex every day for a month.  He was game, so here we are.

It's Day 6, and if you wanna know how things are going, one good indicator is that my vagina is sore as hell.  In a good way, of course!  It's been amazing and we're not even a week in yet.  We find ourselves often having sex more than once a day which used to be a rare event. We've revealed fantasies and kinks to each other that we'd never talked about.  We're talking honestly together about our sex life in a natural, unforced way.  We're doings things we've never done for each other before, like writing naughty stories.  Basically, we're having a ton of fun . There's an extra spring in both of our steps.  Our libidos are way, way up.  Last night, having drinks with friends, the boy couldn't keep his hands off me.  He's acting like he used to act in the first few months we got together, and it's great.  It's like we're in our 20s again!

I should explain our "rules" for the experiment.  We're trying to have sex at least once a day for 30 out of 31 days, so this gives us one "day off" although obviously we're going to try to avoid using it.  "Sex" is being defined as us being intimate together with the intention for at least one person to orgasm, although it still counts even if orgasm doesn't happen.  That takes a lot of the pressure off.  I think 30 days of having PIV sex with the requirement that we both orgasm would involve way too much pressure and end up being fairly unsexy.   We haven't talked about it, but I think it's implicit that if anything really serious comes up - an emergency, or serious illness, and the experiment can be called off without guilt or bad feelings.

But that's it, really.  But it's amazing how quickly it gets you in a different frame of mind.  I've sometimes complained about how I often give the boy "freebie" orgasms via blowjobs without expecting anything from him but I never get that myself - well, that's changed!  I'm getting a lot more erotic attention with less expectation of reciprocating which I think is freeing for him as well.  I also just find myself saying "yes" instead of putting it off til later like I often do.

For example, this morning I'd been up for a few hours and was browsing the Internet happily with my coffee.  The boy had just woken up, and as is typical, had a giant erection.  (His morning wood is incredibly impressive).  He came up to me and started fondling me and made me aware of his state.  I hadn't showered, hadn't even brushed my teeth, wasn't feeling particularly horny - so normally I would have brushed him off.  But...we're doing a sex challenge, so I know we have to do it at some point in the day, so why NOT now?  I brushed my teeth, and we proceeded to have fantastic sex, with a clitoral orgasm and two g-spot orgasms from me (including the supposedly mythical simultaneous orgasm for us!)

If we're having this much fun 6 days in, what awaits us for the rest of the month?  Well, I'll keep you updated.  Suffice it to say, I've got my groove back, and we might actually be motivated to take advantage of the fact that we're a happily married kinky couple in an open relationship.

Don't worry though, despite improved mood, we're still going to snark the hell out of people on the Internet.  That's another one of our kinks.

Non-Monogamy Seduction Fail

So I was talking to a single friend today about fuck-buddies, swingers, awkward situations, and what we did over the weekend. Coffee talk.

For the record, she knows nothing of Girl's and my open relationship. She knows some of my co-workers socially and there are somethings I refuse to be forced to discuss around the water cooler.

She talked the previous night's get together at her house with several couples she'd known for a while. As the night wore on, the the alcohol ran low, all but one of the couples left. The last couple proved to be the hardest one to deal with.

As she knew, or quickly learned, they had an open relationship. She also became aware that the wife had another guy on the side and that the husband was only allowed to play while the wife was present. With that on the table, the husband started making not so subtle come-ons. He had done this before without the wife around, and always been rebuffed by the friend, but this time, emboldened by wine and the presence of his wife, he kept pressing the issue, going so far as to repeatedly suggest they go off to the bedroom together.

It's not clear from the way it was relayed to me exactly what the wife was to do in the meantime. Sit on the sofa and channel surf? Put an ear to the door? Slip in and join them in some scenario from a third-rate porn video?

She declined, again and again, but it being her house, she had no retreat and even desperate looks to the wife weren't getting any response. No, she had to wait until the pursuer was too tired of the chase and finally retreated to the car with his wife.

The point of this story is that as there are good ways to make advances, so too are there awful ways that will definitely get you 86'ed from future guest lists. Not taking no for an answer was definitely the start, but putting the other person in an incredibly awkward situation in which they are cornered and have no idea how to proceed was the nail in the coffin. For anyone who wants to avoid being talked about the next day as "that creepy couple", it's something to consider.

Fuck The Rules! Part 1

So The Boy spends a lot more time on "lifestyle" blogs than I do, because he has a far stronger stomach than I do.  For example, he's been reading Sadie's Open Marriage for years, written by open marriage/polyamory expert Sadie Smythe, although he's not exactly a fan of hers.  Given her sometimes turgid writing style and tendency to resort to psychobabble, I can't say I blame him.  Still, I wasn't particularly interested in her blog until I happened upon the Boy's netbook, which had this entry from her blog up.

Oh hell no.  As you guys know, there's few things that piss me off more in non-monogamy circles than One True Wayism.  And once again, we have an "expert" declaring that a couple dipping their toes in open relationship waters are "doing it wrong" if they decide to agree upon some basic boundaries.

Sadie describes chucking out the rules she and her husband had agreed upon, saying that rules are:

"...monogamous behavior, monogamous thinking, and that sort of thinking doesn’t fit within the open relationship paradigm. Our partners are not ours to control. Hell, they aren’t even ours at all. Open truly means open in this sense – open to allowing our partners the possibility to navigate their outside relationships without our interference."


Oh really?  I thought "open" meant that my husband and I choose to open ourselves up to a possibility other than strict monogamy.  Beyond that, what "open" means is totally individual and negotiable for every couple that decides to give this unique way of living the ol' college try. Not that I had to adhere to the prescribed notions of some blogger*.


Obviously, Sadie is far from alone in this mindset, which seems to come out of the "Secondaries are people too!" camp.  Because couples who have clearly stated expectations and boundaries hurt secondaries, or something.  Not that I should even be using the word secondary, as it's hierarchical and offensive to imply that my fuckbuddy may not carry the same weight as my husband when it comes to major life decisions.  Sure, I'm exaggerating (a little) but the idea that rules are just a misguided way of controlling relationships with secondaries has gained serious traction in the online poly scene.


Problem is, Sadie and those who agree with her are misapplying basic therapy concepts to relationships in baffling ways**.  "The only person you can control is yourself," is a truism so basic that it hardly needs repeating, but Sadie takes that to mean that there's no point in having established rules with your partner, because that's controlling.


Established boundaries and rules are not necessarily an attempt to control your partner, but rather a verbalized set of agreements about expectations around another's behavior.  I accept that I cannot control my partner and realize that if he wanted to, he could go out and fuck as many women as he wanted and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that.  However, I know and trust that my partner values me and our relationship, so he wants to know what my boundaries and expectations are with regards to him being intimate with other people, so that our relationship can continue in a happy and healthy manner.  And not communicating to him what I'm OK with or what makes me uncomfortable is just a recipe for bitterness, feelings of betrayal, and resentment.


The fact is, open or not, romantic or not, every human relationship is based on explicit or implicit rules and expectations.  My husband expects that I will take care of the food shopping and preparation unless I explicitly ask him.  He expects that I will handle our finances, because that's what we agreed upon.  I expect that he will go to work so we can pay our bills.  He expects that I will not jet off to Berlin for two days without checking in first.  This isn't controlling behavior.  These are all expectations based on discussions and negotiations we've had.  Why are expectations and boundaries when it comes to behavior outside the relationship different?  


Sure, at any point, I can decide to stop cooking and paying the bills and checking in with him if I'm not home, and he can't control that.  That doesn't make the concept of these sorts of agreements invalid, it would just mean that I'm being a really shitty person for changing the status quo without discussing it first.  Relationships function well when people articulate what they are willing to do and what they expect from their partner.  It isn't about control - it's about that favorite Poly word: communication.  Two people sharing their lives simply aren't going to get on very well if they aren't sharing what they expect and what makes them happy or unhappy about their partner's behavior.


Hypocritically, all the "Fuck the rules!" advocates in non-monogamy land ignore the fact that almost all of them have a hard and fast rule even if they claim they don't have any rules: they all have a rule about practicing safer sex.  The majority of people in long-term, established relationships don't use barrier protection with each other, which makes it pretty imperative that they do when playing outside the primary relationship and I have yet to encounter anyone in this relationship model who admits to not having a rule about safer play with others.  (Surely, the most soap-operaish drama in polyamory comes from "fluid-bonding" issues or when, god forbid, a primary-secondary couple end up pregnant.)  


But let's face it: "You must practice safer sex with other partners" is a rule, guys.  A controlling, nasty rule!  After all, you can't control your partner!  S/he could choose to not use a condom with another partner, after all, and there's nothing you can do about it.  I guess rules are futile.  Why do we have them? 


I think that most people who are in these types of relationships trust that their partner will abide by that rule, because it's pretty morally reprehensible not to.  But how is this, then, strategically or morally different from choosing to agree upon other rules?  Why is this a rule the non-rules folks employ while shitting on the concept of other rules?  Don't look at me like I have an answer: it's just silly.  Either rules are "monogamist thinking and unhealthy methods of control" or they're a tool that some people utilize in different ways to create a sense of comfort and safety in their relationships.  


Next time, I'll talk about why the two most maligned rules: "Love" and "Veto power" serve a valuable purpose for some people.  


*Having not read Sadie extensively, I could say I have no real issue with her other than I'm not a fan of her writing style.  But then I saw this abject travesty of a spoken word performance in which she fetishizes, otherizes, and stereotypes black men to justify of her love of "black gangster porn"  and I've decided I'm kind of OK with actively not being a fan based on limited information.  If you think I'm wrong, feel free to say so.


**It would be somewhat inappropriate of me to mention that Sadie announced her separation from her husband just weeks after writing about chucking out the rules.  Wait, whoops.

Weiners and Consent

So the feminist blogsophere (still using it ironically) is still talking about Anthony Weiner, so I might as well, too.

The issue is that many feminists are taking issue with the idea, poised usually by liberals, that Weiner's conduct (having sexually-charged internet exchanges with various women) should not be relevant to his political career because it's a private sexual matter that doesn't violate any laws.  The feminist response is that it appears that he sent a sexually explicit picture to a follower of his without having established a consensual, sexual online friendship with her.  In other words: sexual harassment.

And I agree.  It's not cool to send dick pics to random women, period.  Weiner claimed it was "a joke."  The recipient doesn't understand the joke and claims to have never had any salacious interaction with Weiner.  But the other relationships, so far, appear to be explicitly consensual.

If it can be shown that Weiner was sending sexual images to women non-consentually, he is guilty of sexual harassment and should be forced to step down.   Although I find it funny that a man we pretty know is guilty of sexual harassment is regarded as an elder statesman and the same congressmen who were supporting Clinton during his shit are now calling upon Weiner to resign.  But that's just politics, gross, yucky poltics.

What bothers me about this feminist critique is how often it's tied into other moralistic, sex-negative critiques that I find troubling.  For example, in this excellent Shakesville post about the consent issue, a lot of the commenters diverge wildly from the topic of consent to shake their fists at Weiner for being a philandering asshole, for lying to his constituents, and in general for engaging in the consensual online sexual behavior as opposed to calling him out specifically for the behavior that wasn't consensual. This rankles me.

My husband  and I are not out about a great many things in relation to his work life, for good reason.  We're not out about having an open relationship, or our queerness.  Were he or I a public figure, I suspect we'd be even more closeted.  So if we were and some scandal came out about him having sex with dudes on the side, everyone would be up in arms about what a terrible husband he is.  I'm not saying that Weiner and his wife have an open relationship, but what I am saying is we don't know what their private boundaries are for this kind of behavior.  We know he told her about these online relationships before they were married.  That's it.

I find the hang-wringing about "poor Huma" to be shallow and kind of insulting to her.  By all accounts she's a pretty bad-ass lady.  What she does with this unfortunately public information is up to her, but it's not "feminist" to freak out about infidelity and act as if one woman's supposed private pain is somehow a political point.  Infidelity is not a feminist issue, no matter how you want to spin it.

Furthermore, there's a lot of "he's just a gross pervert," sentiment in the feminist blogosphere which I also find weird.  The consent issue is huge, and at the heart of the matter, but based on what I'm reading I can't help but feel that even if everything Weiner did was explicitly consensual, some progressives would have a problem with it, because "it's perverted" and "congressmen shouldn't act this way."  Weiner is a married dude who had some really boring, bland netsex.  This is exceedingly common behavior.  Dare I say it, it's pretty much normal behavior for a huge chunk of dudes with Internet access, if my experience on the Internet is any indication.  Does being a congressman mean a person has to give up all their sexual freedoms?  That seems ridiculous to me.  I don't think there's any job that should preclude a person a right to have consensual online flirtations and netsex.

I also find it strange that both in the media and on blogs, this is being spun as an infidelity, full stop.  I feel like it was pretty recently that the mainstream media was asking "Does this sort of behavior count as cheating?"  Apparently it's been decided now.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that netsex can't be cheating.  I'm just befuddled by the assumption that must be.  Some people think that viewing porn in a relationship is cheating.  I think it's a grey area that can be, depending on what the couple in question has agreed on.

At the end of the day, all that really matters about this situation was whether or not Weiner was sexually harrassing women who had no desire for sexual contact with him. I really wish that the moralizing about the other stickier, trickier issues around monogamy and private sexuality wasn't being lumped in with all that.

When Sex Is NOT Fun: The Conclusion

Buckle up for another long post, folks.  If it weren't for our Chicago correspondent, this blog's revival would be mostly about the "Sex is Fun" podcast, so I want this to be the last time I address Kidder, Jade, Lorax and the whole drama for a while, at least.  Which means I have lots of things to say.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, my first haterade post on Kidder got some attention from the "Sex is Fun" crew and they've continued commenting on posts both the Boy and I have made about their podcast.  It's like I'm talking to famous people!

A new podcast plopped today, and again, basic personality differences aside (Kidder's style will probably always rub me the wrong way - he's a Virgo, after all) I was relieved to hear what sounded like actual emotional growth, honest communication, and a genuine owning of shit by both parties.  In all seriousness, this is a podcast that should be listened to by anyone who is considering non-monogamy or is engaged in it.

I'd intended super-snarky post that I never got around to making, as new podcasts kept emerging which kept changing my viewpoint.  I was initially reacting to episode #276, in which I felt Kidder enlisted his crew to take Jade to task for fucking up with regards to her open relationship.  I thought that podcast was a trainwreck.  As a listener, I felt manipulated.  It was clear that Kidder was very upset with how things were progressing in his relationship, but was addressing them passive-aggressively.  After the initial wind-up post which I had intended to lead into an analysis of all the ways episode #276 was an example of Doin' It Wrong, I found I'd been linked to by Kidder, and tracked down the source: Facebook.  Where I got to witness Kidder's descent into social-media madness which had all happened a couple of weeks earlier.

I want to make something very clear. I am not now, nor will I ever be against people speaking publicly about the good and bad parts about relationships in general and open relationships in particular.   Quite the contrary: I think people should. I wouldn't have this blog at all if I didn't think that.  One of my biggest critiques of "mainstream" poly stuff on the Internet is that it rarely talks openly about the pitfalls and problems that non-monogamous relationships will likely encounter.  My problems with Kidder's relationship difficulties were not that he was talking about it, but rather how he was talking about it.

Kidder has admitted, repeatedly, that posting about his relationship problems explicitly breaking a promise he made to his wife.  And he did it anyway, because she'd broken promises to him and he wanted to know "what it would feel like."  In the latest podcast he was even more honest, and perhaps inadvertently admitted that since she'd broken promises, he felt he had the right to make her feel what he'd felt.

This is inherently, basic relationship 101 stuff that is NOT OKAY.  He was purposefully being vindictive, because he was hurt.  And because he's Internet-famous, everyone else heard it, too. He has yet to acknowledge this was a fuck-up, and something he should be apologizing for as opposed to trying to spin as a good thing because it lead to him getting support and hearing stories.  He could have heard those stories and gotten that support without being vindictive and punishing.  He didn't hit the "post" button thinking, "I'm sure this will save my relationship!"  Likewise, he insists on calling her paramour "her boyfriend" knowing she hates it.  It's punishment, pure and simple.  And while the impulse to respond tit-for-tat, to hurt your partner when they're hurting you, are all perfectly normal and understandable, that doesn't justify it.

In the most recent episode of the podcast, Kidder acknowledged that he'd failed to use "I" statements and blamed Jade a lot in a way that put her on the defensive.  I was really gratified to hear this, even if again, this is basic relationship 101 stuff that people should really have down pat before embarking on something as daunting as opening up a relationship.  But he still failed to make the connection between being mean and acting hateful towards Jade privately - which he showed genuine remorse for (a sign you're probably not actually a narcissist, Kidder) - and exhibiting the same behavior publicly.

So, that's why I was so irritated in the first place.  While again, I agree that people sharing their intimate lives via social media can be a good thing, I still also believe that doing so in the heat of the moment (and under the influence of substances) is a bad idea.  I am no stranger to this behavior, I've had an online journal since 2000 which has always made my partners uncomfortable because I tend to write about whatever I'm going through on said journal.  The difference is, I haven't done it publicly - it's always been accessible only to people I trust.  And since it's not, I don't use it punitively.  I try to walk the fine line between speaking my truth - which is enormously helpful for me - and not violating my partners' privacy. I view it much in the same way I would going to friends in real life for support.  I haven't always been sensitive to my partners' feelings in this endeavor, but when I have fucked up, it's been through genuine error, not because I wanted to publicly shame my partner.

This doesn't mean I censor myself, but I might censor who can read what I write, for instance, as opposed to putting it out there where everyone can see.  I might, in the heat of my anger, write something, but not post it, then reread in the morning to make sure I was posting my emotional truth as opposed to angry word vomit.  Given that Kidder and Jade seem to meet people who listen to the podcast/read their Faceboks, I can only imagine the amount of anxiety and awkwardness that comes as a result of Kidder lashing out the way he did, and as much as I think the last podcast was awesome, he has yet to take any responsibility for it.  Sometimes "radical honesty" can be code for "being a dick."

Those criticisms aside, it really was a good episode.  Jade's side had been missing for most of this and I was glad to hear it and some of my suspicions about the difference in the two sides was validated.  They spelled out some basic concepts anyone in open relationships should adhere to, along with the aforementioned non-blamey "I" statements, is validating your partner's feelings.  As I mentioned before, I am wary of validating crazy feelings that are based on irrational cognitions, but there comes a point, particularly in the delicate stages of opening up a relationship where it is super-important to validate your partner even if you think their feelings are nuts.  Jade apparently failed at this hardcore.  I've found it's also a good thing if you are the insecure party to acknowledge that hey, your feelings might in fact be crazy - but can you please validate me anyway?  That way your partner doesn't feel like they did something wrong (which will put them on the defensive) but you'll still get the validation you need.  And it's just honest.  It's useless getting into a tit-for-tat argument where you're trying to justify if your feelings are "correct" or not.  If you open up saying, "Hey, these feelings may be nuts, but they exist, can we deal with that?"  you're more likely to get the response you need.

I am sincerely glad that Jade and Kidder have talked it out, that Kidder acknowledged that Jade isn't the only person who fucked up here, and that Jade genuinely seems to realize that she was kind of being an asshole.  Too bad they couldn't not bring "Sex At Dawn" into it, which reminds me I never followed through on my Christopher Ryan interview.  Oh well.  His book sucks.

This is a win for all us partnered non-monogamous types!  Some of Kidder's Facebook fans have noted that for a hater, I sure am invested in all this.  Well, of course I am - I have been listening to the podcast for years now.  I wouldn't listen if I found it totally loathsome.  (Note: How often to I listen to Polyamory Weekly now?  Oh wait, I don't.)  I may have a lot of issues with how Kidder presents himself but I am always genuinely rooting for sex-positive people who talk honestly about sex, because I think it's important.

I also hope that a lot of the hardcore fans of SiF don't see Kidder as a guru (he's just a guy, guys) and realize there are a lot of ways to do non-monogamy, and what Kidder and Jade present is just one valid way of many valid ways. As Kidder and Jade admitted, they really are just newbs to all this.  I still think of the Boy and I as newbs, too.  Frankly, I'm way more wary of people like Tacit and Joreth of PolyWeekly fame who present themselves as experts while giving terrible advice based on limited experience.  In spite of the problems I have with how Kidder handled this, he isn't presenting himself as an expert and instead is being incredibly honest about his fears and insecurities and problems, which I applaud.  Both because it's cool and because it gives me blogging fodder.

Too much tl;dr?  Here's the short version:
1) Everyone will make mistakes when negotiating new boundaries of openness.  Expect it. It's not the end of the world.
2) There's a difference between discussing the hardships you're going through publicly and lashing out at your partner publicly
3) Be thoughtful when you engage social media to talk about your relationship problems.
4) Use "I" statements, always always ALWAYS
5) You can - and should - validate your partner's feelings even if you don't agree with them.  Validation and agreement are not the same thing.
6) Don't fucking lie.
7) Don't use your partner's current issues with you to air previously-unexpressed grievances.  Tit-for-tat is a way of taking the focus off their problems with you and blaming them instead.  Don't do it.
8) Own your own shit.

HTH YALL

When Sex is NOT Fun: Gin & Tears Edition

GirlAboutOaktown has had her say on the ongoing SiF meltdown. I was affected by it, but in a different way.

The first 20 minutes of episode #278 was really heavy. It was the most gripping, brutal 20 minutes of podcasting I've ever heard. It actually hurt to listen to, especially as someone who's gone through the torrent of emotions that starting an open relationship can bring. Seriously, if there's ever an open relationship/polyamory archive, this section of the podcast should have a permanent spot.

In that first 20 minutes, one hears a tremendous amount of pain in Kidder's voice. It sounds as if Jade was really trying to push his buttons. How else could she keep going on with it, aware of how much it was hurting him?

At about 20:20, though, the podcast took a dark, narcissistic turn. Up until this point, it was the hardest to listen to podcast I've ever heard, and I've listened to numerous German language podcasts. Once the mood turned, though, it was all about Kidder's rage and my sympathy dissolved. I started to wonder if he was just chumming up the waters for the sake of it. So he hasn't fucked anyone else because Jade didn't allow it. So he backed off his relationship with another member of the SiF podcast. That doesn't mean that Jade didn't let him have sex and emotional connection with someone else. She's been through a lot of the angst he was going through, but it didn't end up on Facebook.

As I said above, I went through a storm of emotions when my partner finally consummated her nearly 5 year long flirtation (and a little more) with a friend of hers. The night she called me to ask if it was okay to go ahead, I was 400 miles away. Immediately, I felt helpless, as if my world was drifting away and I was powerful to stop the changes. I pictured many ridiculous scenes, like the two of them sitting up in bed together, enjoying a post-coital cigarette after a mind-blowing fuck, talking about how it was the best thing either of them had ever done.

Then a funny thing happened. She started chatting online with me. It had been many hours since I last heard from her, but here she was. I asked her questions, and started to feel better that the same woman I loved was chatting with me now, and things were really the same.

When I woke up the next morning, I still had plenty of anxiety, so I put my mind to work to find someone to hook up with. It wasn't punitive. It was just that I wanted to remind myself that open relationships have benefits as well as difficulties. Sure, she was probably back to fucking him that morning (and she was), but that I could go have fun and it was okay.

The next time she hooked up with him, I was still anxious, but less so. The next time after that, even less so. One of the things I had realized early on that made it get better, was being able to spot the jealousy and weirdness creep in, and trying to remind myself that, while they were valid feelings, they were my own to deal with.

Kidder is free to own those feelings, but he has to learn to own them completely and honestly. She did some things that hurt him and his hurt was reasonable, but his reaction wasn't.

In his shoes, I would have been hurt by the New Orleans trip issue. He suggested that they go to New Orleans together for a little romantic getaway, since he had to travel there for work. She declined, citing money issues and needing to find a sitter. When she realized that the other guy would be nearby, she started making travel plans. That was pretty clueless on her part.

Jade also sexted the other guy about illicit office sex right after rejecting Kidder's advances in his office. This one is a bit different. While I can see how he'd feel hurt, if he looked at it honestly, he'd realize that much of what is sexy is built on fantasy. One may be really put off by the act of having anal sex, but in dirty talk, finds nothing hotter than going on about a spit-lubed double anal fuckfest. If our fantasies mirrored what we really do, they'd lose their power. Anyone who thinks I'm full of shit about this one, I defy you to be honest about whether you'd be willing to show your partner every bit of porn you've ever masturbated to.

I thought so.

To wrap this up for now, I'd like to suggest that maybe Kidder and Jade were not ready for this now, if ever. They went to a swingers' resort and did a full swap, started calling it an open relationship, and collapsed into poly drama in a record amount of time. It's like deciding to visit the zoo and then taking up bullfighting all in the same afternoon. Kidder is no sexual Hemingway. Maybe a bush league Bukowski, but only for the intoxicated rage.

Sex is NOT Fun: Nor is This Super-Long Post

Kidder Kaper and Krew (this K thing is fun) found my last post and have responded!  12 comments on one post may actually be a record for us here at Sex or Television!  I was all set - a week ago - to write a scathing post detailing all the weird relationship stuff Kidder has put out there, but the most recent episode of Sex Is Fun has made me rethink this, because despite the fundamental problem that it's yet another  show entirely about Kidder and his life, actual self-awareness was demonstrated in the episode, as was genuine, heartfelt sadness that makes it very hard to continue in this vein of snark.

Fact is, my own personal issues with how Kidder runs his podcast and responds to people on the Internet aside, opening up your relationship is a fraught, terrifying thing to do.  If you have some time, and you're a personal relationship drama voyeur like me, I'd recommend listening to episodes #276 and #278 of Sex Is Fun. You'll be missing a lot of backstory, of course, some of which I'm still missing too, but it should give you a decent idea of the stuff I want to talk about.  And since I'm not going to get into the details of rehashing the history of their relationship troubles here, you'll have to listen to see how what I'm saying applies to their situation.

As I've written before, I don't subscribe to the theory, popular amongst Polaymory activists, that open relationships have to be 100% "fair" to be "good."  I am all for individuals and couples setting their boundaries and then communicating them to each other and renegotiating them.  I think that "irrational" or "unfair" boundaries are fine, provided the other partner is totally OK with abiding by them.  Where you run into a problem is when an irrational/unfair boundary conflicts with what the other partner wants.

Kidder, by his own admission, is really insecure, and has a need to "feel special."  I think right there that is a personality trait that is going to make moving forward with a seriously open relationship pretty tricky.  People with those needs, right or wrong, are often going to feel neglected even in a relatively happy long-term monogamous relationship, just because without "NRE" (poly-speak for "new relationship energy" which is a ridiculous term that normal people call "infatuation") it is human nature to fall into ruts, take your partner for granted, and so forth and so on.  When you open up your relationship to the possibility of your partner experiencing NRE with another person, that's like murder on someone who is already insecure and has a need to always feel like they are the most important person in their partner's life.

That said, I am not a huge fan of the idea that all beliefs and feelings are automatically "valid" just because someone feels them.  Having been in a relationship with someone who was seriously mentally ill and thus held completely ridiculous and inaccurate cognition as a result of his mental illness, I think it's ludicrous to say we have to honor everyone's feelings at all times.  Crazy feelings are crazy, and while we can feel sympathy to the person having the crazy feelings, it doesn't mean we have to validate the false cognition said crazy feeling is based on.

I honestly feel that in order to do any serious amount of openness seriously, both partners need to feel absolutely secure in how "special" they are to their partner without necessarily needing a huge amount of reassurance about it.  Because opening up is challenging even for the most secure people, really.  To this end, I'm not convinced that Kidder and Jade are really good candidates for having a more open relationship (apart from what they've been doing all these years that didn't challenge their relationship as much).  And it sucks for them, because they both obviously want a higher degree of openness but are unable to agree with each other's boundaries on how to handle that.  They both want an emotional and sexual relationship with other people that threatens the other person.

It's almost like the SiF people are at one end of the spectrum and the PolyWeekly folks are at the other.  The latter discusses jealousy in open relationships by refusing to deal with it or making pat remarks about how bubble baths and "taking care of yourself" is the cure to jealousy.  The SiF point of view seems to be that twinges of jealousy are to be responded with by demands on your partner and endless "processing" as opposed to any sort of introspection or willingness to try to work on and move past the insecurities that are causing said jealousy.  I will say, as someone in a committed relationship, that I am overall more sympathetic to the SiF approach because at least it is more likely to ensure the survival of the primary relationship, whereas the PolyWeekly folks are incensed by the very idea of a primary relationship, because it's not egalitarian enough.

I think there's a line in-between that isn't particularly popular and doesn't have some sort of cute catchphrase, but involves both respecting your partner's boundaries but a willingness to advocate for your wants; communicating when you're feeling insecure or upset with your partners actions but also being willing to endure feeling shitty at times and owning your own shit.

Here's an example.  The Boy and I started our path to what is now a pretty open relationship by having threesomes with other men.  None of them went terribly well, and I was frustrated after the last one and tired of the effort and the awkward sex.  I told the Boy that I'd actually be OK with him, in the future, having sex with men without me present, although we'd have to discuss the terms in more detail at another time. I also told him that I wouldn't be comfortable with him having sex with the guy we'd just finished having sex with, though.  (Hey!  Semi-irrational boundary!) 

The next day I checked the joint e-mail account the Boy and I had set up for arranging said threesomes, and saw that the Boy had e-mailed the guy we'd just had sex with about hooking up one-on-one.  I was shocked and furious.  I called him from work and demanded to know why he'd do that when I'd just brought up the possibility of him seeing other guys without me and specifically said I didn't want either one of us to have anything to do with that guy.  What did the Boy do?  He lied.  He claimed he hadn't sent that e-mail.  When he realized I had proof, he copped to it.  I was livid, sick to my stomach, threatened to break up with him, told him he'd just ruined any chance he'd had of being able to have sex outside our relationship if our relationship even survived.  At the time I felt righteously furious, now I realize I was being a little melodramatic.

This mirrors a lot of the kind of things that led to Kidder's current troubles.  He caught his wife chatting with her paramour and didn't disclose it when he asked.  My partner lied to my face about making a sex date with another person.  How did we get through this huge betrayal of trust?

We talked about it.  Not for days or weeks, but for like, a couple hours.  I realized the Boy and I had a miscommunication - he thought I'd essentially given him permission to fuck other guys, full stop, and was really excited by this new freedom. When I called him to confront him, he realized that he'd triggered all my fears and insecurities about having a cheating bisexual partner (as my ex cheated on me repeatedly with men) and panicked.  And because he didn't want to appear to be just like my ex, he lied.

Like Kidder, I wasn't mad that my partner wanted to have sex with someone else - I was upset that I'd been lied to.  And I felt like I'd granted him this gift, something that wasn't easy for me and in the very first instance he could, he fucked it up and proved himself untrustworthy.  Actually so far, I'd say based on the podcasts, that what I was feeling and what Kidder was feeling intially - why did you lie to me after I'd just granted you something awesome? - were very similar.  So dudebro, I feel ya there.

But instead of making a podcast where I got my friends to passive-aggressively rehash the wrongs my partner had done to me, I talked with the Boy and sat with my feelings, and was able to realize that his intention was not to betray me or hurt me.  And that my reaction - overreaction - to the Boy's e-mail put him in a place where he was terrified to admit to it because of my insecurities and past. It didn't take "three years" to work past, it took about a week or two before I was cool with him going off and fucking someone else.  And he did.  Crazy!

Of course, moving is easy to do when you have faith in your partner.  Despite the fact that he'd just lied blatantly to me, I still believed that on the whole the Boy was truthful with me.  What strikes me about these podcasts, particularly the latter one, is that Kidder does not believe Jade will be truthful with him.  Which is apparently borne out by the events that follow.  The question is, then, is Jade just a terrible lying liar who lies, or does Kidder's reactions - perhaps, dare I say, overreactions - to Jade's initial "disclosure glitches" help create an environment that almost guarantees she won't fully disclose to him?  That I can't say, because I am not Lorax, their relationship counselor. (Btw, guys, that's kinda fucked up, just sayin'.)

The latest podcast certainly makes it sound like Jade is a terrible lying liar.  But it's also clear that the amount of disclosure needed - full access to all chats, texts, Facebook pages, etc - is a bar that makes having an open relationship kinda tricky.  Kidder is defensive of his need to have full disclosure to be OK with the openness, but the full disclosure also gives him the ability to monitor everything obsessively and stew over real and periceved slights in a way that doesn't come across as totally healthy. I have, in theory, a "right" to know all of the Boy's activities online.  I have almost never taken advantage of that right because I don't feel a need to.  I trust him.  When I have, what I've seen has validated my trust.  I guess it's a different can of worms when what you see does the opposite.  If Jade is as untrustworthy as Kidder describes, then I don't see how they can even consider having any serious degree of openness in their relationship.  But in that case I also don't get why they even have a relationship.  Trust is important for a lot of reasons, not just because you're involving other people in your sex life.

I should note, for the sake of fairness, that I have violated the Boy's boundaries too.  I had (oral) sex with a guy without his permission, told him immediately a fterward, and to be totally fair, his reaction to it was so much more sensible than my response to his indiscretion.  This is the thing that is missing in the discussion of opening up on SiF - WHEN NEGOTIATING OPEN RELATIONSHIPS, PEOPLE WILL FUCK UP.  This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. There is absolutely no way to move forward with open relationships without a certain amount of fucking up, miscommunications, "disclosure glitches" and the like.  It's just the way this goes.  After gazillions of years lurking in Poly and Swinging boards, it seems that people run into the most trouble when they don't expect people to fuck up, and then are blindsided and really upset when it does happen, and then freak the fuck out.

What people don't seem to realize about open relationships, even if they claim to, is that it really does take a lot of internal work.  I don't mean endless discussions with your partner, but internal discussions.  I feel like someone in an open relationship should constantly be thinking about how they're creating their own cognitions, and whether those cognitions are based in reality or their own insecurities.  While it's apparent that Jade fucked up, big time, it also seems like Kidder created a self-fufilling prophecy, based in his own insecurity and fears that he isn't "special" where he was going to, from the get-go, interpet any behavior on Jade's part as proof of what he already believed.  Jade played her role perfectly, as the Boy said when we were discussing it this morning, almost as if she was pushing the buttons that would make him freak out the most.  It's the sad dance of bullshit that I think most of us in long-term relationships will somewhat identify with.  But to do openness successfully, you have to radically alter these sorts of programmed responses.  Sometimes it's more important to shut up and sit with your feelings as opposed to making demands.  Otherwise you're just going to end up in a war for control, which appears to be exactly what happened.

I mean, if either of us had demanded a partner cancel a date because we weren't feeling 100% secure and OK with it at that moment, I don't think we would have ever really opened up our relationship at all.  It takes your partner doing something that perhaps you're scared about, having it happen, and then realizing in the end that your survived and it wasn't that bad to feel cool about it next time.  Or at least, that's how it worked for us.  Our approach may not work for everyone, but we have a remarkably open relationship with few restrictions or need to monitor each other, and we both used to see ourselves as highly monogamous, insecure people.  And I've found that once you realize you can live through something you're terrified of and feel OK about it later, more and more boundaries you used to see as inviolable start to feel unnecessary.  I went from the point where I knew I'd never be OK with the Boy having sex with another woman.  Now I think it's something I could handle, although I know it would still intially cause me some distress and anxiety.

Let me make a terrible analogy: anal sex.  Although a lot of people like to claim that "if you do it right" anal sex won't hurt at all, the reality is that even with tons of foreplay, using small plugs and a ton of lube, and so forth, for most people, intially having anal sex with a penis-sized object will have some discomfort, if not "pain" exactly..  It'll feel uncomfortable and perhaps provoke some anxiety.  If you can slowly work past that, you might end up really digging it.  Or you might be able to do it, but not find it enjoyable and worth the discomfort and effort.  But if you stop at the first sign of discomfort, you're never gonna get that dildo up your butt, period.  Of course, you also have to have trust that your partner isn't going to shove that thing up there before you're ready. 

Or to sum up all this tl;dr: open relationships are not for control freaks and although it's trite, trust is paramount, but so is the willingness to forgive, a genuine desire to move forward, and actively try to give your partner the space to be trustworthy. It's a real leap of faith. The Boy has his own, somewhat different take on this (one that's a lot harsher on Jade, actually), so I'll try to get him to weigh in.  I still have a butt-load of opinions about how Kidder handled this stuff, particularly on his public Facebook, but I wanted to use this post as a way to maybe take some lessons from this volcano of drama that people could use to think about what kind of philosophical and practical approach they take to openness, not to tear Kidder a new one.  But I still might!  Anything can happen at Sex or Television!  I hope some of the people who came here via Kidder's Facebook page will stick around, because we talk a lot about open relationships and non-traditional sexuality in general here.  And I write posts that are way, way, way too long.